


Jets

by seki



Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, Infidelity, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-27
Updated: 2014-04-15
Packaged: 2018-01-02 19:32:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 23
Words: 60,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1060719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seki/pseuds/seki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It really doesn't take much to make a whole host of realizations blossom. Sometimes, it's as simple as one idle thought.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Yagyuu

**Author's Note:**

> Fair warning: This is still very much a WIP, in that I've only a hazy sense of how this story is going to end. It will get finished -- I've written 200k of this so far, I'm damned well not leaving it hanging now -- but it might take a while.

Yagyuu is thankful for how his life has turned out, when he has time to consider it. His parents have done their best to prepare him to achieve success in life; they have laid out an assured path towards professional success, a good marriage, a couple of children. 

He also has a best friend who keeps his life from being as predictable as that assured path would otherwise be.

Oh, Yagyuu thinks he'd have been content enough had his life continued as laid out for him in junior school. At the beginning of middle school, he was set on course for a glittering future. On his father's recommendation, he'd even begun playing golf -- a game ideal for networking and forming alliances in the right social circles. It would have been wonderful for his career, as long as he'd learned to lose convincingly along the way.

But then Niou had elbowed his way into Yagyuu's life and forced him into Rikkai's tennis team. He'd met people whose effect on his life had been profound. Yanagi, for instance, and the way he valued knowledge for its own sake; it had impressed Yagyuu and made him want that sharpness of intelligence for himself. Or Yukimura, driven and focused on a level Yagyuu can barely comprehend. His single-mindedness would be alienating were Yukimura not also blessed with charisma that makes all Yagyuu's training in social niceties seem irrelevant; nobody disappoints Yukimura lightly. Yagyuu thinks he's learned a lot from knowing these two.

But Niou -- in so many ways his opposite -- had become his best friend. It's been a useful partnership. He's learned a lot. Subterfuge. Observation. Slyness. And _because_ of associating with Niou over the years, he's learned a lot about himself. That he can take genuine satisfaction in defeating opponents completely. That he is capable of trusting others completely on occasion. That his patience and tolerance can verge on the saintlike, occasionally.

Right now, that patience is being tested fully. He is having to resist the urge to punch Niou rather hard.

Thankfully, Yagyuu's girlfriend doesn't seem to have noticed -- or perhaps, understood -- the subtext of Niou's comments. That alone is saving Niou from -- at the very least -- a sharp kick in the shins.

"Yeah, we really had to know each other perfectly," says Niou to Tamura-san, his own date, "I remember spending ages studying exactly how far he'd turn his wrist for the backhand; he's very forceful about it." He gives Yagyuu a slightly sickly smile across the table, and Yagyuu feels a pulse of genuine irritation at his friend. "So I could mimic it, I mean, of course."

Tamura-san clasps her hands together in barely-concealed joy. Yagyuu knows exactly why Niou is talking about this, of course; Niou's girlfriend is addicted to the kind of manga that shows waiflike boys clinging weepily to sterner older boys and declaring their true love. Niou's certainly got the skinniness down for the former, and Yagyuu supposes he looks serious enough most of the time to be categorised as stern. The glasses help, too. From what Niou said after their last double date, Tamura-san started getting a lot more permissive with Niou when she started thinking he might have a long-standing unrequited crush on Yagyuu.

Yagyuu can almost admire the fact that Niou is exploiting her fetish -- as long as he doesn't actually invent some kind of historical sexual incident that other people might hear about -- but there's a time and a place for Niou to be romanticising their doubles pairing. That place is absolutely not in front of Yagyuu's girlfriend.

He glances at his watch, and says that they really should get going if they want to get to the cinema early enough to pick decent seats. Niou gives him a confused look -- it's obviously just an excuse to cut the conversation short -- but agrees without voicing any objection. The two girls decide they want to find a bathroom first, and excuse themselves.

"What'd I do?"

Yagyuu glares at Niou. "Memorising my racket grip in loving detail, for a start. In front of Maeda-kun."

"Ah, c'mon. I thought she was all pure and shit, she's not going to think it means anything. She'll just think it's sweet I care so much about you."

"She's not an idiot, Niou-kun. Keep your girl's fantasy fodder out of my girl's earshot in future, please."

Niou makes a huffing noise. "Fine, fine."

They pay before the girls return, and walk over to the cinema slowly. The film they see isn't very interesting but, as Tamura-san and Niou spend the whole movie whispering and giggling, Yagyuu supposes it's just as well. It'd be much more annoying to be distracted if the movie were good, after all. Maeda lets him put his arm around her in the dark, and he likes that he can feel the shape of her shoulders underneath her thin sweater. She laughs politely at the parts which are supposed to be funny, and he watches her face in the flickering light; her determination to enjoy the rather mediocre date is endearing, he decides.

Afterwards, they part company with Niou and Tamura-san. Yagyuu walks Maeda home, and receives for his trouble a brief hug before she heads indoors without him. They have been dating for seven months, thinks Yagyuu, in faint exasperation. Her parents have met him multiple times; he has been to dinners at their home; they are used to the idea of her having a boyfriend and they seem to approve of him. It really wouldn't scandalise them all that much for her to at least kiss him on the cheek after he walks her home after a date.

On the other hand, at least he and Niou have girlfriends. Their friends -- especially from the tennis club -- seem to be making a poor showing in those stakes; Yagyuu isn't sure if Marui's string of rejections ranks better or worse than Yukimura's apparent determination to turn down every girl who dares confess to him. Yanagi, meanwhile, had raced through dating-and-ditching a handful of girls in each previous term; Yagyuu's a little surprised he hasn't bothered to repeat the experiment this term.

As for Sanada, he'd startled them all at the start of the school year by having acquired a girlfriend over the holidays, and a rather pretty one at that. Unfortunately, he'd rather lived down to their expectations by breaking up with her just after they'd won at the district championships, claiming that he needed fewer distractions so he could focus on winning Nationals with the team. After the tennis team swept to their expected victory, he'd asked her out again.

Her public, acerbically-phrased and very thorough explanation of why she would do no such thing had absolutely humiliated Sanada. It had also earned her some serious admiration from those who'd witnessed the whole of her speech.

Comparatively, Yagyuu thinks he's done very well in finding himself a girlfriend. Maeda is very respectable and smart and popular. She's pretty, and his parents like her. He doesn't really understand her sometimes -- her taste in music, her obsession with teddy bear mascot figures -- but that's okay; he suspects he's not supposed to. They make a good couple, he's told. A gentleman and his lady.

He does vaguely envy Niou, if only because Niou can date girls who are much less ladylike. Niou's first girlfriend in high school didn't impress him much -- he suspects Niou had dated her purely because he wanted to compete with Sanada -- but the second one was an older fashion-scene sort of girl who'd apparently found Niou's projection of eccentricity and rebellion entertaining for a while. She'd been a little too hard-faced for real beauty, but she was witty and edgy and willing to educate Niou in a whole host of interesting ways. Niou'd been pretty heartbroken when she broke it off with him. Tamura-san is not quite on the same level in any way; even so, Yagyuu suspects she's a lot more welcoming of advances than Maeda.

Not that he wants to be the kind of guy who only thinks about how far a girl will go. It's just... vague envy, and it's mostly more about the kind of personalities involved in all this. Yagyuu can't really see himself ever dating a girl like Niou's, but on the other hand, Niou definitely seems to have more fun on his dates.


	2. Niou

Niou isn't entirely sure how he got himself in this situation.

Well, he can trace the _events_ that led to him being in the cinema, holding hands with a boy. It's just that he can't quite believe that they happened.

It's mostly Yagyuu's fault, anyway. Admittedly Niou probably shouldn't have been playing up the homo-homo hints in front of Yagyuu's girl, but well, Tamu-chi really did get hot for that stuff, and it was kind of easy to get carried away once he started making shit up. And then Yagyuu had started to get all twitchy about Niou touching him. Niou liked being able to touch Yagyuu. Well, Niou mostly just liked touching people anyway -- it was just a thing -- but Niou especially liked that _Yagyuu_ , for all of his projected primness and formality, had gotten comfortable with having Niou use him as a pillow or an armrest or a backrest when he felt like it. Niou'd been doing that for so long that Yagyuu's objections felt insulting.

He'd gotten annoyed enough to decide to go pester Yanagi instead; they'd hung out a fair bit during last year's tennis season, and Yanagi didn't seem to mind if Niou vented or bitched as long as he didn't complain too much about Yukimura or Sanada. And he would put up with Niou sprawling on him, up to a point.

"I should ask _you_ out," Niou'd joked. Yanagi was one of the prettiest guys in their year, according to at least two girls Niou knew. "That'd get her really excited, I bet."

Yanagi had given him a strange, assessing look. "I'm free on Saturday, actually, if you'd like to socialise."

"Ha, really? She'll _flip_."

"I'll meet you after school."

Really, there was nothing that date-like about it at first -- they'd gone to one of the big malls out in the fringes of Yokohama, where there was some big promotional event happening. Niou kind of loved that sort of thing. Free snacks and lots of people in big mascot costumes and lots of people having a blast even though they were just out shopping really. At some point Yanagi had bought a drink and pointedly offered Niou the same straw he'd used and Niou had laughed and taken that as a dare; indirect kissing, huh, he's not scared, bring it on.

Later on Yanagi reached out and took his hand as they walked along. Niou took it to be just Yanagi trying to freak him out; sounding out his boundaries. It'd take more than that to do it, so he'd found himself wandering around hand-in-hand with Yanagi. It had felt nice, actually, and that had been a bit weird.

And now, well. 

He's sitting in the dark, sort-of watching the movie they'd picked -- Yanagi had bought the tickets, which made Niou feel like he really was being the girl on this date but hey, free movie -- and Yanagi is holding his hand again. Which Niou would be coping just fine with if Yanagi wasn't idly rubbing his thumb in a slow circle on the inside of Niou's wrist. It's sending weird tingles up Niou's arm, and he can't tell if he wants Yanagi to stop or not.

Yanagi stops anyway after a while, and it's mostly a relief. Niou relaxes, right up until Yanagi twists around a bit in his chair and rests his head on Niou's shoulder. His hair tickles Niou's ear, and really this is closer than Niou needs to be to a guy when they're sitting in the back row of the cinema together. Niou is about to shrug him off, and then Yanagi moves again and practically cuddles up against Niou's side and that feels sort of good and Niou is so confused that he just gives in. Whatever Yanagi does now is not his fault any more. He's not going to be too chicken or uncool to handle it.

Actually Yanagi seems to be getting into the movie, while Niou's arm -- trapped between Yanagi and himself -- is going numb. He considers his options for a few minutes, and then rolls his eyes at his own hesitation, frees his arm and puts it around Yanagi's shoulders instead. That seems to make Yanagi tense up for just a moment; maybe he thinks Niou is raising the stakes, who knows what goes on inside his head. He doesn't object though, and now Niou's gotten comfortable he can mostly ignore the feel of Yanagi being pressed up against him like an unusually lanky girl. Even when Yanagi takes hold of Niou's other hand and laces their fingers together again.

The action onscreen builds and ebbs and builds again, and during a comparatively dull moment Yanagi moves his head and says softly, his breath tickling Niou's neck, that Niou's hair smells very good. Niou can't stop himself from twitching in response, and there's no way that Yanagi -- since he's now basically plastered to Niou's side from the armrest upwards -- can miss that.

"Masaharu," murmurs Yanagi into the hair just behind Niou's ear, and that earns him another twitch as Niou starts seriously cursing himself for trying to compete with _Yanagi_ of all people at mind games, "I think I'd like to go on another date with you soon."

Niou is tempted not to answer, but then Yanagi starts doing that thing with his thumb on Niou's wrist again, and his brain fuses a bit. "Yeah, okay, when?"

He can feel Yanagi smirking against his neck, which he'd be more annoyed by if he wasn't thinking it was kind of a turn-on.

"My family are going out on Tuesday. You should come over after school."

Niou mentally throws his hands up in the air. Either Yanagi is setting him up for some kind of elaborate joke, or he's seriously trying to get into Niou's pants. Frankly, right now, Niou's not sure he'd mind. "Okay," he says, and Yanagi squeezes his hand in acknowledgement.

Later on, Niou phones Yagyuu and admits what he's been doing with his day.

"You went on a _date_ with Yanagi-kun. An actual date. Did Tamura-san talk you into that one?"

Niou tries to explain to Yagyuu, who expresses confusion that Niou has managed to get into this situation, followed by exasperation that Niou kept allowing things to escalate and didn't, well, just walk away when it started getting weird. Niou can't help but feel a bit defensive, as really it's not his fault Yanagi's some kind of smooth-moving dating magician. Finally, Yagyuu says what Niou's been dreading hearing out loud.

Yagyuu lowers his voice as he asks, "I can't believe I'm having to say this, but Yanagi's not a _girl_. Are you saying you're alright with that?"

Niou is about to remind Yagyuu that he has kissed a boy before -- unless Yagyuu doesn't count -- so this isn't _entirely_ new ground. Admittedly, that had been totally excusable due to being really high on adrenalin and victory endorphins. Yagyuu'd done the same thing to him a few weeks later, in fact, which made everything nice and even as far as blackmail material went. But Yagyuu gets really touchy whenever Niou jokes about those kisses, and under the circumstances he might actually just hang up the phone and not talk to Niou for a week.

He stares at the walls of his room. "Well, I'm seeing him again. I guess I'll know soon enough."

By the time Tuesday afternoon rolls around, Niou is pretty tightly-wound. Yagyuu says he has nothing to offer when Niou tries to ask for advice (except to be careful not to act too date-like in public, which Niou guesses is good advice but isn't going to help him work out how he feels). Meanwhile, Sanada keeps giving him weird looks in class, so presumably Yanagi's told him some of what's been going on. Niou wonders what he said -- Sanada doesn't look annoyed or disgusted, just sort of baffled.

When he gets to the agreed meeting place, Yukimura's waiting with Yanagi. He blinks, suddenly convinced that this is a trap of some sort, but Yukimura walks with them to the train station and talks cheerfully about classwork and doesn't say a word about the date. As Yukimura's train pulls in, he gives Yanagi an amused look and tells them to have fun and be careful; Niou really wonders what Yukimura's been told for that sort of comment to be necessary.

He's relieved that Yanagi doesn't try and hold his hand on the train ride; at the mall was one thing, but if they were seen doing it again it'd just be weird. In fact, Yanagi seems to be pretty relaxed and unhurried as they walk back to his, which means that Niou's completely unprepared for the way Yanagi presses him against a wall almost as soon as his front door has closed behind them. Yanagi turns out to be a good enough kisser, however, that Niou suddenly doesn't really care that they're still in the front hall, that Yanagi's a boy or that he was all kinds of conflicted about this earlier.

They end up in Yanagi's room, on his futon, and Niou definitely needs to revise how attracted he is to guys. Yanagi's _hot_ , he concludes, and Niou's lips feel like they're tingling every time Yanagi moves his mouth away to kiss or nibble at Niou's jaw. Or ear. Or neck. Niou kisses back enthusiastically, and when he slides his knee up between Yanagi's legs, he's pleased to find that Yanagi's obviously having a good time too. He kind of wants to see what Yanagi's body feels like, but when he tries to get his hands under Yanagi's clothes, Yanagi twists his body away and firmly removes Niou's hand from his stomach and back on top of his shirt. Fine, thinks Niou with vague disappointment, making out'll have to do for now, and he focuses his attention back onto Yanagi's neck determinedly.

They kiss like this for what feels like hours; eventually Yanagi pushes Niou away reluctantly on the basis his parents will be returning soon. Niou nods and tries to will away his erection as Yanagi straightens his futon and hunts down their discarded school ties. It's only when Yanagi hands him his hairband that he even notices that his rat-tail is hanging loose. He stares at himself in Yanagi's mirror as he tries to get his hair back into its usual style; he looks like, well, like he's been kissing someone for a while, flushed and red-lipped and with huge, wide-open pupils that make his eyes look dark.

Yanagi smiles -- a genuine, warm smile -- behind him in the mirror, and Niou's satisfied to note that even the eternally collected Yanagi isn't immune to evidence of their makeout session. There's a darkened mark visible low on his collarbone and his face is as flushed as Niou's, though _Yanagi's_ hair is restored to neatness with just a brief shake of his head. Yanagi drapes Niou's tie over the chair before heading out of the door, leaving Niou alone.

Niou straightens his shirt and fixes his tie -- well, more or less -- and takes a few deep breaths before joining Yanagi downstairs. Yanagi is, to Niou's entire lack of surprise, engaged in making tea when Niou finds him, and he spares Niou only a brief glance before pouring him a cup.

Niou sniffs it, cautiously; he's never been much for traditional tea, and it never seems to smell of much. He takes a small sip, and nearly scalds his tongue.

"Masaharu," says Yanagi, "if you'd like to come here again on Friday after school, I believe my parents are going out, and my sister has a date."

Niou nods, inhaling furiously to try and cool his tongue. "I... um, why not? Friday."

He wonders idly if he's supposed to call Yanagi by his first name now. He tries it out in his head, and decides that it sounds weird. He's still wondering later that evening, by which point it's really started to sink in that he agreed to another date. On the one hand, there's likely to be more kissing, and he thinks that sounds pretty awesome. On the other hand, if that sounds good to him then he guesses that means he likes boys. Or Yanagi. Or something. Thinking about being into boys makes his head hurt. Honestly, Niou thinks it would be much more interesting to just lie down and think about how hot the kissing itself was. In private, with his door firmly locked. Introspection can wait.

He remembers, some time later, that he has a date with his actual girlfriend scheduled for the next day. He spends his lunchtime avoiding his friends so he can think about what to do. In the end, he decides that he can turn it to his advantage, if nothing else. He can't tell Tamu-chi that he went on a date with his teammate or that there was kissing, obviously. He can, however, _confess_ that he's been noticing Yanagi lately; he says that ever since they played doubles this year he's felt close to him. He lets her probe for details and hints that he's had a dream about kissing Yanagi. The way she kisses him afterwards makes him sort of wish he'd saved this 'confession' deal for some point when there might be some chance for privacy; she probably wouldn't let him go _that_ far, but she's a lot more open to persuasion when she's thinking about him and other boys together.

By Friday, though, he's ridiculously tense again. All these dates are making his ego feel great but it's a bit much for him to deal with in the space of one week. He needs to talk this out and really there's only one person he'd trust with all this. He grabs Yagyuu at lunchtime and hauls him outside and to the benches by the tennis court; it's cold but Niou thinks he'll prioritise privacy over warmth for once.

Yagyuu sets aside his lunch halfway through Niou's description of his past week, which could mean he's revolted by the topic, but it doesn't matter. Niou doesn't stop talking until he reaches, well, today, and the fact he's supposed to have another date with Yanagi tonight and he's not sure what he wants to have happen. He feels weird that he doesn't feel weird about Yanagi being a guy. He feels a bit shitty for basically cheating on his girlfriend even if she would be totally on board with who it's with. He's annoyed that he's spending so much time angsting when he could just be basking in the fact that he's got a pretty sweet setup going on. Plus he knows it's really fucking cold out here but he needs to just say this all out loud and Yagyuu's the only person who he trusts to listen and not call him a total freak, so Yagyuu's just going to have to deal with it. And he feels completely stupid for bitching about getting too much action, because who complains about that?

There's an ominous pause, and then Yagyuu lets out a deep, huffing sigh of amusement and takes off his jacket. He hands it to Niou and shrugs. "I don't have any idea on what you should do, but I suppose you feel better now?"

"Yes. Thanks."

Yagyuu picks his lunch back up again as Niou pulls Yagyuu's jacket on over his own. "Do you think Yanagi-kun is having the same crisis over this?"

"Probably not." Niou sighs, and pokes at his own food again, staring at the tennis court. "He's definitely the goddamned top in this relationship, isn't he."

"I really don't want that image, Niou-kun."

Niou laughs. "Fine, fine. Change the topic, then. Distract me from thinking about it."

"I realise it would break the habit of a lifetime, but we could talk about classwork. Exams are coming up soon."

Niou wrinkles his nose in fake horror, but they're soon discussing their literature texts and he's mostly managing to forget about the whole issue.

As it turns out, the third date Niou has with Yanagi is notably anticlimactic. They kiss again, and this time Niou gets his hands up Yanagi's shirt at least -- it's definitely a new sort of sensation doing that, since Yanagi's body seems to be mostly made up of sharp bones and flat planes of muscle, but his skin feels good. They stop kissing eventually, and as they're neatening themselves up again Yanagi says carefully that he doesn't think they should date again. Niou blinks, but asking 'why' feels like it would just sound desperate.

He settles for rather lamely saying, "really?"

Yanagi nods, and gives Niou a decidedly chaste kiss on the lips before saying, "I simply wouldn't be comfortable going any further. I don't think I'm who you need in your life. But it has been wonderful."

Niou thinks _smooth_ with no small amount of appreciation for the craft involved. It's a pretty bold gambit; dumping him but looking like it's a selfless and noble decision. Still, Yanagi has handed him an easy script to play along with to get out of here gracefully, so he sighs and nods with just the faintest hint of regret. "It has. If you change your mind..."

He sees the amusement flicker like a shadow across Yanagi's face, one artist to another. "Promise me you won't think badly of me if I don't."

"Of course not. I hope you find someone who deserves you."

Yanagi takes his hand, and bows over it. "As I do, for you."

Oddly enough, this whole exchange cheers up Niou immensely. He leaves feeling amused -- which he suspects was part of Yanagi's whole plan -- and by the time he gets home he's actually whistling. He did get ditched, technically, but it's not like that actually leaves him single in this case. He'd spent the whole week feeling kind of overwhelmed -- Yanagi was definitely steering this whole thing, and there's only so long Niou's pride would let that keep going. 

Besides, so far he's not really been able to separate 'boys' from 'this thing with Yanagi'. Maybe he should think about that more. Again: in private, with his door locked. Just, you know, in case.


	3. Yukimura

Yukimura is finding the last part of the first year of high school far more entertaining than he'd previously have hoped.

He'd been a bit disappointed that Renji hadn't dated this term. Yukimura's parents had politely requested he not let himself be distracted by girls for the first year or two of high school, and so he'd taken to living vicariously through Renji's brief, accelerated dating sessions. But Renji had declared himself bored of that particular exercise when Yukimura had asked, so he'd resigned himself to having to wait until Sanada spontaneously sprouted another unexpected girlfriend.

And then suddenly Renji had pulled him aside after school to tell him that Niou had asked him out.

They'd sat in Sanada's house that evening and discussed it. Renji was absolutely certain that Niou hadn't meant him to agree -- why would Renji agree to help him provoke his girlfriend, really -- but Renji'd rather liked the idea of throwing Niou off-balance by saying yes. Yukimura didn't disagree, but noted that Niou was pretty unpredictable; was Renji sure he wanted to do this? What if Niou actually treated it like a _real_ date?

Renji had smiled, and said he had no problem with that. Niou seemed attractive enough physically and his unpredictability would keep him interesting.

"And him being a boy is okay?"

"It might be. I won't know until I try."

Yukimura had shrugged -- Renji's insistence on empirical evidence was sometimes baffling, but at least it was consistent -- and tried, in what was one of the more surreal conversations he'd ever had, to help Renji decide where to take Niou on a date. Sanada was unhelpful; on hearing Renji was genuinely going to go out with Niou and was taking it even remotely seriously, he'd stomped off claiming he needed some extra meditation time.

It had been gratifying to hear that the date had gone well. It had also been slightly disturbing, if he actually pictured Niou as Renji's date. Renji had been slightly more arch than usual when describing the date; Yukimura had eventually wheedled it out of him that he was feeling rather smug at having managed to manipulate _Niou_ of all people. Even Sanada had admitted that unsettling Niou was probably worth all this hassle.

Hearing about Renji's rather basic plans for the second date had definitely skewed the scales further towards disturbing, though. Yukimura didn't think it was particularly a problem if Renji's tastes turned out to run towards guys, and it even made a certain sense when held up against his apparent boredom with girls. Still, Renji's utter lack of a sexual identity crisis was something Yukimura hadn't expected. And after the second date, well, Renji didn't precisely kiss and tell, but there'd still been enough detail to make Yukimura give Niou a disbelieving look or two when he'd seen him at school afterwards.

He hadn't even realised Renji had been planning a third date until he received a text message saying _Had my third date with Masaharu. He seemed to accept the breakup just fine._ He called Renji immediately, and Renji seemed a bit surprised that Yukimura wasn't expecting this.

"Masaharu's exciting to kiss, but ultimately he's not any better suited to me than any of my previous dates. It did make me aware that I wouldn't be averse to dating boys, however, so it was a worthwhile experiment."

Yukimura had tried not to think about 'exciting to kiss' too hard, and had let Renji go with a promise to meet up the next day as planned before.

Sanada and Renji had turned up at Yukimura's house that morning. It didn't take long for the conversation to turn to Renji's suddenly-curtailed relationship with Niou. Yukimura certainly had questions and Renji seemed in a sharing mood.

After some vague jokes about Renji's predictability -- three date maximum, as usual -- Yukimura says that he still wonders what Niou made of the whole thing. He adds that he still can't imagine Niou being a good date. Renji calmly says that Masaharu (and Yukimura couldn't help but stifle a giggle at Sanada's expression the first time he'd heard Renji call Niou _that_ ) had been a perfectly good boyfriend, no matter what his motivation had been, and Renji didn't regret any part of dating him. It merely wasn't meant to last.

Yukimura is not entirely sure how to respond. Sanada just shrugs, and says he's glad this whole thing is over.

"That's a little small-minded of you. Don't you respect my right to explore my own sexuality?"

"I've no problem with that -- well, okay, I was surprised, but it's not my business. I'm just baffled that you'd pick _Niou_ to experiment with."

Renji shrugs. "He asked."

"So, hang on. If Renji had a boyfriend that wasn't Niou, you think you'd be okay with that?" Yukimura asks.

"Of course I would. He'd still be Renji. I'm not some kind of homo-hater." Sanada looks genuinely offended. "Why would you think I was?"

"...I'm not sure," admits Yukimura, and a mischievous impulse compels him to add, "I admit I'm surprised, though. I think I need proof of that."

"Huh?" Sanada shoots Yukimura a wary look. "What sort of proof?"

Renji is also giving Yukimura a slightly bemused look. "Are you suggesting I obtain another boyfriend so Genichirou can prove he's alright with it?"

"No. Words are cheap." Yukimura pretends to ponder. Teasing Sanada is too much fun to let this drop, and he's pretty sure Renji will play along. "I think only actions can convince me here. I think Genichirou should date a boy."

"Ah." Renji glances at Sanada, who is looking horrified. "I do agree that would be a strong argument in his defense."

"Indeed. And since I know of only two boys who seem to be willing to date other boys, and he'd be horrified by the other one... tell me, would you date him?"

"Hmm, I see." Renji regards Sanada thoughtfully, tipping his head to one side. "I could be persuaded."

"Wait, I'm not dating Renji. I like girls," says Sanada, his eyes wide.

"Irrelevant," says Renji, flicking one hand in a dismissive gesture. "That doesn't stop you going on a date with me."

Yukimura grins; Renji doesn't take a direct 'no' very well from either of them these days if he can argue his way around it.

"We can go out on a date next Saturday. Assuming you don't mind us not all hanging out, Seiichi?"

Yukimura smothers his laughter and attempts to look serious. "I think I'll cope with the abandonment."

"Then it's set. Genichirou, I'll come collect you from your house and take you out somewhere. Do you have any preferences for where to go?"

Sanada looks even more offended than before. "Excuse me, but if you're going to insist on this ridiculous idea then I am not being the girl. I'll organise the damned date."

Renji and Yukimura both laugh, and Sanada sighs as he realises he's been pushed into agreeing; he's reasonably good-natured about it, though. Yukimura is secretly rather impressed with his friend; he doesn't think Sanada would have been nearly as tolerant of this sort of whim a year or two ago.

Still, tolerant doesn't mean capable of organising a reasonable date. Yukimura heads over to Sanada's house on the Saturday morning, tells him it's for his own good, and then makes Sanada try on several sets of clothing before telling him which he should wear. He hides Sanada's favourite cap along the way; he's not sure Sanada would actually try to wear it on a date but he's not running the risk. Sanada refuses to tell Yukimura what he's planned, despite Yukimura's needling.

"I will be very disappointed if Renji tells me you're a lousy date."

"Give me a little credit, please."

"Alright, alright. But this is your chance to redeem yourself, you know. Your reputation as a boyfriend could be repaired by this."

Sanada glares at Yukimura. "Thank you so much. I think I'll be fine."

Yukimura is sorely tempted to follow Sanada instead of going home. He manages to resist, and spends his day at home, splitting his time between studying and wondering vaguely what his friends are doing.

That afternoon, he receives a text message from Sanada. _Renji asked for another date_

_Say yes!_

There's no response, so Yukimura sends another text. _Do you really want both me *and* Renji being sad at you for saying no?_

He doesn't get a response to that one, either, so he gives up.

Renji calls Yukimura that evening, to report on the day. He sounds rather charmed. Sanada had taken Renji to a calligraphy exhibition, then they'd had a picnic in the park -- it'd been rather cold, but quite pleasant -- followed by going to a butterfly house nearby. Yukimura is slightly taken aback. It sounds like Sanada genuinely did a decent job of picking date spots. Maybe he's not actually a total failure at this dating thing. Renji admits that he'd rather intended to push Sanada's comfort levels a bit over the course of the day, mostly by flirting or touching him deliberately. As it turned out, he'd been having too nice a time to want to risk Sanada ending the date early.

Sanada _had_ agreed to another date, and Renji had insisted it was his turn to organise things. Yukimura asks what his plans are, and Renji says he's not sure yet. He's planning on playing it by ear. Yukimura recalls Renji's second date with Niou, and then decides not to ask Renji again. In fact, he thinks he should probably just avoid thinking about it.

Yukimura does his best not to tease Sanada for being a good date over the next few days. He thinks this is heroically restrained of him; Sanada seems to expect to be mocked for it.

He actually only hears about the second date when Renji calls him afterwards, perhaps because Renji had been unusually impulsive about it. He'd turned up at Sanada's house and told Sanada's parents he was there for a study session. Once upstairs, he informed Sanada that this was in fact their second date; they were going to play Shogi and have a nice relaxing time together.

Sanada had made tea and they'd set up the board. Sanada had laughed at being beaten -- rather quickly -- in the first match, and had begun to set up another game. Then Renji had kissed him.

"You kissed Genichirou?"

"I did."

Sanada had apparently been okay with that at first -- quite enthusiastic, even -- but after a few minutes he'd suddenly panicked, shoved Renji away and said that he couldn't do this. Renji had said it was okay, they could just forget it had happened, but Sanada had gone into a weird fugue state of just repeating that that this was all wrong despite Renji's assurances that he wouldn't try to kiss him again.

"Eventually he calmed down a bit. When I left he was looking a bit shell-shocked still, though."

Yukimura is horrified, though he tries to sound calm. He wasn't genuinely expecting Renji to do something so drastic; at least not unless he was 100% certain it would be accepted positively. What if Renji has actually pushed Sanada too far? He can't imagine the two of them not talking, not occasionally ganging up against him when they think he's wrong; what will he do if they can't all be friends after this?

For the next week or so, Sanada seems sort of blank -- he functions fine in classes and around others, but around Yukimura and Renji he is muted and largely ignores their attempts to draw him out, which range from gentle concern to fond mockery.

"I've broken him," says Renji to Yukimura one lunchtime, miserably. "I've apologised, I've told him to rewrite history, what else can I do?"

"He'll get over it," says Yukimura with more confidence than he feels. "He will."

Later that day, as they walk to the station together after school, Yukimura finally gives into his curiosity. He asks Renji if he really thinks he has _romantic_ feelings for Sanada.

Renji sighs. "I'm not certain. After that first date, it seemed like it was definitely something that I could see happening; Genichirou is one of my best friends; being in love just seems like a logical extension of that. I really did want to kiss him. So yes, I suppose I must do."

They wait for their trains together on the platform.

"Seiichi, I know you can't date, not without disobeying your parents. And so this isn't me asking you out. But if you could, would you -- would I be someone you'd consider?"

"Maybe." Yukimura tries to fit the idea of Renji-as-boyfriend into his head; it's not easy. "I'm pretty certain you could talk me into it, somehow."

Renji laughs. "I'd be trying to, at least."

He times his words exceptionally well; his train arrives before Yukimura can formulate a response. Yukimura is left standing on the platform, trying to work out whether Renji just confessed to him or not.

It takes a few days before Sanada seems to shake off his confusion. Renji and Yukimura keep up a solid front of pretending they noticed nothing wrong with his behaviour, though Yukimura notices him occasionally glancing sideways at Renji and blushing faintly. Yukimura regards this as promising on several levels; at least Sanada is clearly thinking about what happened. Embarrassment is better than denial, surely. Renji seems less convinced.

Either way, Yukimura thinks an intervention is called for. After considering how best to get Sanada to talk about Renji at all, he asks Akaya to come for dinner with them both. It's not that hard to convince either of them; he frames it as a chance to discuss their plans for next year's tennis season.

Akaya is full of excitement that he'll be coming to the high school soon. Yukimura does use this opportunity to raise one concern of his. They'll decide the team via ranking matches, he knows that from talking to the captain. The thing is, even if everyone from the third year except the captain is beaten in ranking matches -- and Yukimura thinks they will be, with the very slight possible exception of the captain's regular doubles partner -- there are only seven places left on the team. There are potentially seven national-level players in the second year, and adding Akaya makes eight. And even that is assuming some new prodigy doesn't suddenly develop, and that there are no talented transfer students on the horizon. It would be rather rude to turf the actual captain out of the team, so he expects to lose at least one of the team he'd have liked to reassemble next year. Sanada expresses the opinion that if the captain can be beaten, he deserves to lose his place. Akaya agrees, and says mulishly that Yukimura should be captain anyway.

It's a thought that's occurred to Yukimura, honestly; their new captain is going to be in his third year, and will probably be thinking about his schoolwork -- he's a great player, but not one that's ever going to turn pro, in Yukimura's opinion -- so he's not going to sacrifice his grades for the sake of the team.

Akaya asks after everyone and Yukimura replies chirpily, watching Sanada's expression tense subtly whenever Renji is mentioned. He steers Akaya into discussing if he wants to play doubles again with Renji next year, until Sanada glares at Yukimura and pointedly changes the subject by asking who Akaya is passing his captaincy onto. They've no real opinion on his choice -- a fairly promising 2nd year middle school student -- but assure him that they trust his judgement.

Neither of them tell Akaya about Renji's dates with Niou, or with Sanada, even when he idly asks if any of his sempais have girlfriends yet. It doesn't quite seem right to.


	4. Yagyuu

Yagyuu's girlfriend, after a couple of weeks of obviously working up to _something_ , tells him that she's not comfortable with who he chooses to be friends with, especially people from the tennis team. If he really wants to rejoin the team next year, then she doesn't think she should be his girlfriend any longer.

As ultimatums go, it's a stupid one for her to make. He's picking tennis. This must be what it feels like being Sanada.

Yagyuu wonders why she had a problem with the tennis club _specifically_. He pushes her for information, and, while she is vague on precise details, he gets the distinct impression that someone saw Niou and Yanagi on their date and got, well, the right impression. Admittedly, both Niou and Yanagi are seen as eccentric enough to excuse a lot of behaviour but holding hands in public was a little far even for them. Rumours are like poison; it only takes a little to do a lot of damage.

And of course, Niou's recent girlfriend-baiting probably hasn't helped. Maybe Maeda wasn't actually as deaf to his insinuations as Yagyuu had hoped after all.

Yagyuu is grumpy at being dumped and even grumpier at the suspected reasons for it. He's also, if he's honest, rather annoyed that he dated Maeda for so long if she was just going to dump him like this. He liked her -- she was refreshingly cheerful and uncynical, a rarity in his social circles -- but it feels like he invested a lot of time in the relationship for very little reward.

Valentine's day is only a few days later, to add insult to injury. Yagyuu, feeling distinctly uncharitable towards girls generally, declines every chocolate he's offered that might be romantically-inspired. He notices that the old tennis team members are mostly following suit on that one; Marui is the only person who seems actively pleased to be getting chocolates. Niou's girlfriend actually gives Niou some very pretty-looking chocolate, which he accepts as if distinctly embarrassed by the whole thing. He tells Yagyuu later that they tasted pretty terrible, but Yagyuu suspects that Niou's exaggerating to make him feel better.

Yagyuu is still sulking about everything that Friday evening when Niou calls him up and announces that they're going out that Saturday after school. Yagyuu tells him that his jokes are ill-timed and not funny, and he won't be a pawn in Niou's attempts to excite his fujoshi girlfriend. Niou, taken aback, tells him he's a fucking idiot.

"Why'd you assume I mean a _date_ , anyway? It's just that we haven't hung out for a while, just us. And I figure you need to do something other than just sitting at home moping. C'mon, Yaaaagyu. It'll be fun."

Yagyuu relents. "Fine. But you're paying."

"Yeah, alright, if that's what it takes. We'll go somewhere cool, promise."

To his vague surprise, 'somewhere cool' is a slightly old-fashioned theme park up near Kawasaki. Niou seems determined to make Yagyuu feel better, for a value of better that equates to regressing to childhood; he buys sugary sweets and makes Yagyuu go on the rides that have photo sections set up so they can photobomb the passengers in front of them. It kind of works; Yagyuu comes out of his funk enough to pull horrific faces at the cameras with Niou.

After a while Niou forces Yagyuu into a haunted-house sort of attraction; it seems sort of lame and Yagyuu hates these things but Niou's especially insistent. In a dark section themed like a horror movie, Niou slips away from Yagyuu's side. It takes him a moment to notice, what with all the stupid flashing shock-tactic lighting effects and faux-spooky noises. He waits for Niou to return, but it becomes apparent after about five minutes that Niou isn't coming back. Maybe he's gone ahead to a part that people can't backtrack from. Sighing, Yagyuu follows the pre-set route through the house, emerging after a while into a brightly-lit hall of mirrors that makes his eyes sting after the darkness of the previous rooms.

The mirrors become a maze, and his reflections stare back at him impassively as he wanders around trying to find the actual path out. He trudges around a corner into another dead end, and suddenly there's a flicker in the reflections that makes him blink and check over his shoulder, and suddenly two of him are reflected all around as he -- well, Niou in a reasonable facsimile of his outfit and a brown wig and glasses -- steps out from where he'd thought there was a mirror at first glance.

He stares dumbfounded for a moment before bursting into laughter, and Niou cracks up too. Yagyuu's amazed that he was fooled by this old trick for even a split-second, really -- and genuinely rather touched that Niou has gone to so much effort for a prank purely to cheer him up. He takes hold of Niou's arm and pulls him towards the exit, his spirits buoyed; now he's not being confused by a fake reflection, it's not that hard to get out of the maze and then there's only a few moving stairs before they're outside in the fresh air again.

They spend the next hour or so as near-twins, drawing curious looks from passers-by. Yagyuu wonders why they haven't done this sort of thing in so long; he's missed feeling this synchronised with someone. Niou stashes the wig and glasses in his bag after a while, and they go to a cafe to grab something to eat. They are still getting weird looks at how similarly they're dressed but Yagyuu likes it; Niou's bag contains several variations on what Niou must have predicted what Yagyuu would wear -- tie, sweater vest and all -- and it's kind of flattering that Niou pays that much attention.

Yagyuu feels like he wants to apologise but he's not really sure what for or how. He sits next to Niou in their semi-circular booth and leans against him companionably, like he used to back before Niou started making it sound creepy. Niou grins, shifts so that it's more comfortable for Yagyuu, and steals the food he bought from Yagyuu's plate. Yagyuu steals some of Niou's in return, and they elbow each other affectionately; he's never been good at vocalising forgiveness, but he can't recall ever Niou managing it gracefully either. Maybe they can forgo the actual apologies.

They spend the rest of the afternoon being dumb kids; they go on the stupidest rides they can find, including ones really meant for toddlers, and it feels really freeing to not care about anything except fun for a while.

It doesn't escape Yagyuu's notice that Niou gets progressively more fidgety over the course of the afternoon. By the time it starts getting dark, Niou's preoccupied enough to let Yagyuu beat him at one of the darts-throwing games; that's weird enough that Yagyuu suggests they head home. Niou startles into alertness, as if abruptly woken from thought, and asks if Yagyuu minds if they do one last thing before they leave the park. Yagyuu agrees, fairly sure he knows what's coming, and Niou grabs his hand and pulls him along until they're in the queue shelter for one of the disused rides, just about hidden from view from the rest of the park.

"Alright," says Niou. "Either you're actually going to punch me for doing this, or I'm way luckier than I deserve to be."

Yagyuu allows Niou to push him firmly backwards, so his back is pressed up against the wall. Niou might have said this wasn't a date but, really, after everything that's happened recently, it's entirely unsurprising when Niou kisses him.

It's not a great kiss, despite all the practise Niou must have had recently. Niou is frantic and sharp-toothed; it feels as if he's determined to persuade Yagyuu to kiss him back by sheer force of will. Yagyuu doesn't mind, though, because sometimes things between him and Niou don't work quite as they expect. It'll get better; just like with everything else, it's just about persevering until things click. He kisses back for a bit, as best he can, before pushing Niou gently away. The push is not a rejection; it's a request for a postponement -- if they're going to kiss more, it shouldn't be here -- and if Niou doesn't understand that then he doesn't know him as well as he thought.

Niou hesitantly suggests, as if expecting Yagyuu to refuse, that maybe they should continue this in privacy.

They kiss for a long time, that evening, with Yagyuu half-sprawled on top of Niou as they lie on his bed. Yagyuu hasn't really kissed anyone this way before; Maeda-san or other girls would never have let things go this far and his previous kisses with Niou were hasty messes. This kiss is a lot slower and deeper than those, and it's much better than the kiss earlier now Niou's relaxed and isn't using his teeth so much. Niou's hands slide up the back of his shirt and pull Yagyuu even closer, and his thigh pushes up between Yagyuu's legs, and Yagyuu wishes they'd thought to try this slow-kissing thing ages ago. He kisses his way along Niou's jaw and then bites gently on Niou's earlobe. His experiment is rewarded both by Niou gasping in a _fascinating_ way and by him bucking hard against Yagyuu's groin.

Yagyuu pulls at Niou's collar, determined to make Niou do both those things again, and certain that Niou's neck will be rewardingly sensitive. Niou suddenly laughs, as Yagyuu hooks his fingers into the knot of Niou's tie.

"Ha, careful, last time you nearly throttled me."

Yagyuu pauses. He remembers that too, from when Niou had kissed him for the first time. Yagyuu'd been enthused enough to haul Niou back by his school tie when he'd pulled away to breathe, but had somehow only grabbed one end of the tie. It had tightened around Niou's neck unexpectedly, making him choke in surprise. The sudden mishap had killed the moment pretty effectively. It had been awful and embarrassing, but Niou's girlfriend would still love to hear about it. The thought is like a slap; is he really sure Niou isn't just fishing for more material here?

He pushes himself back into a sitting position and quietly asks if Niou is going to use this story to excite Tamura-san too.

Niou looks startled and sits up too. "No!"

It's too loud and they both freeze; Yagyuu half-expects his mother to come up to see what's going on. They listen for a moment, but there are no footsteps.

After a minute or two has passed, Niou continues, much more quietly. "Seriously, no. Ah, shit, I wasn't thinking. This isn't about her. I've no idea why I'm still even dating her. Shit." He closes his eyes, as if not sure he can look at Yagyuu while he's talking about this. "I'm a fucking coward."

"In what sense?"

"I like her fine, but honestly? I'd rather spend time with you, any day."

"Well, it's okay to find friends more--"

"No, not as a friend. _With_ you. Doing stuff like this."

_Oh_. That's not a sentiment Niou has expressed after kissing him before, and it's definitely not one Yagyuu can think about clearly during a makeout session on his bed.

"Um." Yagyuu rubs at his jaw; it's still faintly damp where Niou ran his tongue along it. "I'm not... Niou-kun, don't take this the wrong way, but I think I'm going to need time to think about that."

"Yeah." Niou rolls onto his side, away from Yagyuu. "You and me both."

It's still early, but Yagyuu rolls out the guest futon and turns on the TV in an attempt to ignore the lack of conversation between them. It doesn't work particularly well, and Yagyuu turns off the light far sooner than they usually would. Yagyuu doesn't sleep well, and he suspects Niou is lying awake on his futon too.

Yagyuu can remember back when everyone started hitting the stage of finding girls _interesting_. There was a pamphlet the guys were all given in class; about how it was normal to have dreams about girls and wake up with sticky sheets, and that you shouldn't panic. Their teacher had carefully explained that often you would dream about people you knew, sometimes even boys; you shouldn't assign it too much meaning or assume that you were actually attracted to those people. It just meant your body was ready to think about sex, and your brain was just using familiar images to process those thoughts.

Yagyuu had assessed what he liked to look at and the amount of time he spent with various people he knew, applied some logical thought, and spent a horrified few months expecting his first wet dream to involve any number of male classmates. In the end, it had been about a girl he'd barely noticed before, in the year above. Even after Niou had kissed him that first time, somehow what few overstimulating dreams he'd had all remained firmly heterosexual. He'd cornered Niou in the locker room a month or so later to try it again, but neither of them could really seem to get into it the second time around. Niou'd shrugged and cracked some joke about teenage experimentation afterwards. Yagyuu had rolled his eyes, dismissed both kisses as not really important to either of them, and that had been the end of that. He'd kissed a girl for the first time a month or so later, and it had been good, so he'd decided to assume he wasn't actually homosexual after all.

So this is both familiar and unfamiliar territory at once. Kissing like they did in the park is all impulse and hormones and easy enough to make excuses for in his head, but what Niou is hinting at is... serious. An actual relationship, assuming Niou doesn't decide he didn't mean it. Actually dating a boy is not something that Yagyuu can pretend is just an impulsive fluke. But if he's being totally honest, neither was making out with Niou on his bed earlier.

Would being Niou's _boyfriend_ be different from just being friends who've occasionally tried kissing each other? Is it worth finding out?


	5. Yagyuu

Yagyuu lets his thoughts churn for a week -- a week in which he keeps Niou physically at arm's length, as if they were still arguing -- and then Niou brings his thoughts firmly into focus by sending him a message in his last class of the day.

_its over with tamura. had to break up w her either way really._

Yagyuu's still staring at the message when his phone shudders silently again.

_and okay so i definitely meant what i said but its your call. if not then thats okay. no pressure i promise._

That's clear enough, really, and Yagyuu feels his last shred of resistance wither. He sends back a message, after about five minutes of trying to frame his thoughts into something short enough.

_Yes. I think it's worth trying._

_thank fuck for that. we should talk when you're free. your place or mine? -_o_

Yagyuu sends _Yours. Call home and ask if I can stay over._

They are both unexpectedly shy once they're alone that evening, when they finally shake Niou's mother's attempts to feed them and make sure they're not getting into trouble. Every time Yagyuu tries to think of something to say, he opens his mouth to speak and stalls. What would he say that isn't a horrible cliche or painfully obvious?

Eventually Yagyuu just takes off his glasses and pulls Niou onto the bed; once they're there, the kissing soon follows. It doesn't take long before Yagyuu hits another wall, though; it feels like it's somehow important to take things further than they have before, to prove that this is not a one-off and that he's really alright with being more than friends. He's just not sure what that next step should be. This all seemed to flow much more easily when they were at his house. His hands sort of drift around Niou's back as they kiss, and he's not sure if he should be trying to tug Niou's shirt off or trying to get his hands down Niou's trousers.

"Hn," mutters Niou, noticing. "What's wrong?"

"Sorry; I'm not sure what you're okay with. Or what I'm okay with."

"Neither am I." Niou laughs, lightly, against his ear. "I promise I'll tell you if I think I'm going to freak out. And you do the same, okay?"

Yagyuu laughs, relieved, and tugs at Niou's shirt. "That sounds good. How about I trade you; you take this off and I'll take mine off."

Niou double-checks that his door is locked and his curtains are closed, and once Yagyuu feels Niou's bare chest pressed against his own it all seems to heat up pretty fast. After a while Niou starts fumbling with Yagyuu's belt; that seems like a great idea and soon enough they're both kissing in a tangle of limbs and skin, clothes abandoned on the floor. After a while, Yagyuu decides to just go with his instincts, and he slides his hands down purposefully. Touching Niou's cock turns out to not freak Yagyuu out nearly as much as he feared. It feels rather like his own, really, and he spares a moment to chide himself for worrying about this. Niou reciprocates a few moments later, and Niou's hand on him feels absurdly, startlingly exciting -- the movements Niou makes aren't what he'd use on himself, but that's thrilling in itself -- and he hopes what he's doing feels good too. Niou certainly sounds like he's enjoying it; they muffle their noises in each other's shoulders and mouths but it's a good thing Niou's family are watching something noisy downstairs. Niou actually bites him -- reasonably hard -- at the critical moment, leaving faint welts on his shoulder. Still, Yagyuu was half-expecting that and it's only distracting for a moment; he follows Niou over the edge a minute or two later.

Orgasm leaves them both feeling pretty lazy and sated, and after cleaning up they spend a while just lying on Niou's bed in each other's arms. It feels ridiculously indulgent to be naked and pressed up against another person this way. Niou stretches against his side and murmurs sleepily that this is brilliant, so of course Yagyuu smirks and accuses him of being a secret romantic. Niou shrugs, unconcerned.

When Niou's brother comes upstairs and they hear his door click shut, they quickly haul themselves out of bed and into nightclothes; Niou's family are pretty predictable most evenings, so if they keep the usual routine in mind and don't make much noise then they'll be pretty safe from discovery. Niou rolls out his guest futon, then rolls his eyes at Yagyuu when he looks like he's expecting to actually sleep on it.

Niou remembers to unlock his door about ten minutes before his mother comes up and peeks around the door to see the two boys sitting companionably on the futon, looking at comics together. She tells them to go to sleep soon, and once she's gone Niou locks his door again and the two boys climb into Niou's bed for the night. They start kissing again, slowly and seriously, and this time everything goes more smoothly, though they make a more dedicated effort to being quiet in their responses; every gasp and moan feels dangerously loud in the darkness. After cleaning up again, they both compromise on wearing their pyjama pants at least -- just in case -- set an early alarm, and curl up together for the night.

Waking up next to each other the next morning feels really odd for a moment, and Yagyuu spends a moment just staring at Niou before kissing him again. It soon becomes a struggle to get out of bed so they can shower and get to school on time. They have a prearranged study session that evening anyway, so really it's not going to be long before they're alone again anyway. Yagyuu knows this and yet it's still hard to persuade himself to stop touching Niou so they can actually be presentable to the outside world.

Some semblance of rational, non-Niou-based thought returns during the day. By afternoon he's even able to focus on his classes. It falls apart slightly when Yukimura shows him some of his life sketches during art, and Yagyuu can't help but see Niou in the curve of the spine or the tilt of the faceless model's head. He suspects he's going to be seeing reminders of Niou's body everywhere until this new state of existence sinks in. He can't imagine how long it's going to take to get used to it.

In his room that evening, Yagyuu allows one brief kiss and then sternly tells Niou that they really do need to study. He nearly relents when he sees that Niou's reaction is a mixture of disappointment and rebellion, but steels himself.

"If I don't pass my exams, Niou-kun, I can't join the tennis team."

It's perhaps the only persuasive argument he could offer. "Augh, okay, okay. I'll be good."

Niou and Yagyuu dutifully work through two of their assigned pieces of homework before Yagyuu's mother calls them down for dinner. Afterwards, Yagyuu sits on the floor with one of their study texts, leaning against the bed. Niou sprawls out so he's resting his head on Yagyuu's leg, and starts reading another one. They've studied like this a host of times before, and after a few minutes Yagyuu isn't even too distracted by how close Niou's head is to his groin. It feels like old times, sort of, except that when he gets bored instead of pushing Niou off his lap he drops one hand onto Niou's head and starts toying with Niou's hair. Niou stretches into the caress and sets the book aside, and then yanks Yagyuu down for a kiss. They don't study much more after that; Yagyuu's room doesn't have a lock but prior experiments have shown that his desk chair can be used to wedge the door firmly closed.

Niou heads home not long after, somewhat unwillingly. Yagyuu lies on his bed, his brain fizzing wordlessly in a way which means there's no way he'll be sleeping properly. At about 2am, he wonders if Niou is also awake; after a while he gives in and sends a text: _Can't sleep. I'm thinking too much._

Niou replies -- reassuringly quickly -- with _miss you too_ which isn't quite what Yagyuu wanted but which does make him feel absurdly better. He wonders idly if this is love, or something like it; it's certainly confusing and uncertain and kind of wondrous, just like he's read. He thinks the thought of being in love with Niou is probably ridiculous, but how are you supposed to know? He's pretty sure this stuff isn't supposed to be rational. Yagyuu can't tell if he thinks Niou is pretty or handsome or any of those things that people say about the people they're with; Niou's been a constant in his life so long that it's hard to actually _see_ him properly.

At lunch the next day the weather is good. Niou hauls Yagyuu up to the rooftop and they eat up there, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder contentedly. There are other students up there, but this is something they've done before countless times so nobody should think it too strange. Niou steals bits of Yagyuu's lunch and tries to unload all his daikon and carrot in return. Yagyuu lets him get away with it for once, trying to assess Niou's features without staring at him too much, and wonders if this possibly-love thing is making him go soft.

After school, the old team meets up and they collect Kirihara from the middle school; he and Marui quickly fall into excited discussion about some new arcade game. Niou rolls his eyes and says it's too easy, before grabbing at Yagyuu's scarf and insisting that they should try this _other_ game in the arcade together. Yagyuu sighs and resigns himself to being dragged to shoot zombies or aliens or something in the near future.

On reflection, he suspects dating Niou is going to be exactly the same as being his best friend has been; a lot of compromise, quite a bit of trading favours back and forth, and a lot of new experiences.

Sanada's house is not far from school, but as they enter Yagyuu realises how long it has been since he visited this place; once upon a time the whole team would come here regularly and play cards and mess about after practise. This year he's only been there once so far, when he'd been dragged along for the celebration meetup right after Nationals. It had been an oddly antisocial celebration; the two third years immediately had sat sulkily in one corner and started talking about university, and the second years had been noticeably distant also. Niou had said later that it might be because of the way the final matches had been set up. Sanada had played singles 3, Yanagi and Niou were the doubles 2 team, and Yukimura had played singles 2; they'd defeated Hyotei without any other members of the team needing to play, and perhaps that had led to some feelings of resentment. Yagyuu just thought they were rude, frankly.

But then, the middle school team in third year had bonded more closely than any other group that Yagyuu's been part of; he can't tell if it was mutual terror over Yukimura's illness, or the psychotic determination to win that they'd all shared that year in middle school, or purely because they'd _lost_. Maybe all three. He barely cares about the people he used to know in the golfing club, and most of his classmates are pleasant enough but largely interchangeable for all the impact they have on his life. By contrast, he can't imagine ever not caring about the people in this room, even if they can all individually drive him up the wall on occasion; they're more like family than friends.

Niou and Yanagi seem to be quite comfortable around each other, without a hint of the awkwardness that Yagyuu would expect. It's reassuring; he'd half-expected to feel a bit twitchy about Niou having kissed Yanagi but their attitude makes it feel like it didn't matter to them. Maybe it didn't. At one point Yanagi even mentions the movie they went to see together and Niou nods -- without a flicker of embarrassment -- and says that it's pretty decent.

Yagyuu thinks he and Niou are doing a reasonable job of not being too cosy but being just comfortable enough with each other to look innocent. He tolerates Niou leaning on him for a while, and pushes him off when he becomes a minor inconvenience. Niou pays him back by soaking pellets of paper in tea and dropping them down the back of his shirt. Yagyuu ignores him; he'll get revenge later.

Eventually, Sanada pulls out a large sheet of paper and tells everyone to write out ideas. Soon, most of the team are distracted by, well, as far as Yagyuu can tell from glancing at Marui's contribution, by drawing obscenities. He wonders how long it will be before Sanada notices. Yukimura tugs on his elbow and draws him to one side.

"Well, I see you two have kissed and made up again. A bit more literally than I'd expected, admittedly."

Yagyuu doesn't bother to deny it; there's never been much point lying to Yukimura. "Is it that obvious?"

"No, not really; it was more of a hunch than anything else. Given everything recently, though, I am starting to wonder if those rumours about tennis players being fluid about sexual preference were accurate all along."

Yagyuu pushes his glasses up, trying to conceal his surprise. "You're a tennis player too. You do realise you're including yourself in this generalisation?"

Yukimura grins. "Tell you what, I'll let you know when I figure out exactly who I'm including."

He is looking over at Sanada and Yanagi when he says this, and Yagyuu follows his gaze and something clicks. Friendship and hormones and boundaries shifting everywhere; maybe it's less about being fluid and more about being aware of opportunities. He smiles and says, "Yukimura-kun, when you decide to figure it out, I do not think you will have any problems."

"You think so?" Yukimura asks absentmindedly, still watching Sanada and Yanagi. "I hope you're right."

Niou notices that they are chatting, and shoots Yagyuu a curious look; Yagyuu, without really thinking about it, uses one of their old doubles signals -- a tilted head and a slight drop of the shoulder -- to signal that Niou can proceed as he wishes, Yagyuu has the baseline covered. Niou nods and bows his head back over the paper. Yukimura laughs, and says that he sometimes wishes he had the temperament for doubles play; this whole psychic communication thing looks like fun. Yagyuu says maybe Yukimura just needs to keep trying. Doubles partnerships take work; it's not always as easy as playing a single game and realising you can mesh styles well.

Yukimura laughs, neatly interrupting the elegant metaphor Yagyuu was building towards, and says that he's never been good at patience; either things work or they don't. Maybe he needs to learn persistence.

They both drift back over to the table; Kirihara quickly pulls Yukimura over to his side of the table and starts explaining his ideas. In his excitement he keeps saying 'Yukimura-buchou' and everybody smothers their amusement. Yukimura gently reminds Kirihara that he'd better not do that next year; Yukimura is only vice-captain after all. Kirihara is unrepentant, and says that he can't call Yukimura that; Sanada-sempai is always going to be fukubuchou in his head and it's too much work to unlearn it.

"Tarundoru," mutters Sanada, and everyone - including him, after a moment - bursts into laughter.

On the Saturday, despite their lack of plans, Yagyuu gets a promising message: Niou's family have left him behind at home on his own for the rest of the day. Yagyuu makes the long journey over to Niou's, trying to suppress his imagination so that he doesn't end up embarrassingly aroused on the bus. Niou kisses him hungrily when they get inside his house, and hauls him upstairs. Afterwards Yagyuu spends a while tracing patterns with his finger on Niou's back and shoulders, as Niou sprawls out on the bed. They talk a little, idly, and kiss a bit, and Niou ruffles Yagyuu's hair up and tells him that this, that Yagyuu when he's like this, that should be something only Niou ever gets to see.

He leaves before Niou's parents return, feeling as though his world has shifted significantly. He thinks, suddenly, that there's no way he and Niou can go back to how they were before; even if they never kissed again, he wouldn't be able to forget Niou's touch, Niou's taste, the gasps and moans Niou makes when close to orgasm. That evening and the next day they trade phone calls back and forth, ostensibly to ask questions about schoolwork but in practise mostly just to lapse into a vaguely embarrassed silence.

Into one of these silences, Yagyuu tells Niou he's not sure how to describe his feelings. Niou says that Yagyuu is thinking too hard about what everything means and sometimes there don't have to be words. It feels right; that's what matters. Yagyuu agrees. It feels right. Nothing else matters.


	6. Yukimura

Yukimura feels sorry for Jackal; their exams start pretty much the day he returns to Rikkai. He's been cramming for them in Brazil but he still complains about how much harder the workload is in Japan. He's in the same class as Niou and Sanada and Marui, and they nod sympathetically; it's a bit late to help him revise much, but Marui offers to lend him his class notes anyway.

They hold their party for him on the first evening that isn't followed by exams the next day; it's actually White Day but it's not like it conflicts with any other plans anyone has. They hold the party at Sanada's house for convenience -- his house is large and close to school, and his parents are quite tolerant of groups of tennis boys as long as they don't cause too much mess. Their plans basically boiled down to videogames, cards, a cake and gossip; since they're all _there_ and not with girlfriends, there's an unspoken agreement not to discuss relationships. Kirihara has brought his old Wii and some sports games, and that keeps them all occupied for a while.

Renji volunteers to get more soda from the kitchen; everyone else seems distracted by the bowling game. Yukimura follows him a moment later; catching Renji alone is exactly what he wants.

"Seiichi? Did you want a private word?"

Yukimura kisses him. 

It's not entirely spontaneous. He has this vague idea that if Sanada catches them then maybe he'll be struck with envy and then he'll want to date Renji after all. It's not much of a plan, but Yukimura is out of better ideas. Besides, he's been thinking about kissing Renji pretty frequently since their conversation a few weeks before; now's as good a time as any.

It's actually his first kiss, and really it's not much more than pressing his lips firmly against Renji's for a moment. He'd always sort of thought his first kiss would be with some pretty girl, petite and witty, who'd laugh and blush and be full of interesting quirks and opinions. Instead he's stretching up to kiss someone he's known for years. He's a little surprised that it doesn't feel life-changing, but maybe that's because it's Renji and it just feels sort of weirdly familiar to do this.

Renji's response is to chide Yukimura for not at least taking him on a date first, and then he kisses Yukimura back rather thoroughly. _That_ feels pretty life-changing rather quickly, Yukimura discovers; it feels like a revelation when Renji's tongue meets his own.

As Yukimura had hoped, Sanada soon walks in on the kiss. To his credit, he doesn't yell or walk away, he just closes the door behind him and begins to scold them quietly for doing this where anyone might have walked in on them; what if _his parents_ had seen them?

Renji agrees, and adds to Yukimura that he really could have picked a more romantic location to kiss him.

Sanada pulls the sodas from the fridge, says they should all talk about this later and could they please restrain themselves until the end of the party. Yukimura privately thinks that Sanada should be more concerned about Niou and Yagyuu; the two of them are admirably discreet but they've both dropped their guards a little at the party and are touching each other a little more often and rather more lingeringly than they really should do. At least he and Renji were in a different room. Still, hopefully everyone else is distracted enough by the Wii not to notice.

The party goes well. Jackal is delighted by his cake; Marui is very proud of getting the icing colour just the right shade of Rikkai tennis uniform yellow. They avoid the tennis game; last time Sanada played it, he'd accidentally snapped the wrist cord on the controller and had nearly smashed the screen as a result. Yukimura startles himself by being rather good at the baseball game. Akaya manages to retain his pride by winning the bowling game, despite stiff competition. Eventually, everyone drifts off towards their own homes -- except for Renji and Yukimura, who'd arranged to stay over to help clean up. Sanada doesn't bring the whole topic of kissing up again until the three of them are all in his room, and then he sighs and sits on his futon heavily.

"You two earlier, in my kitchen. One of you explain what the hell is going on."

Renji sits calmly next to Sanada and says, "I'm honestly not certain; it was initiated by Seiichi, not that I'm complaining."

They both look at Yukimura, expectantly.

"Do I need to have a reason except wanting to kiss Renji?"

"Yes. I can't remember the last time you did anything for just one reason. You always have multiple justifications for everything you do."

"And you wouldn't have chosen to kiss me there and then if you hadn't wanted Genichirou to catch us."

"Oh come on. I know Renji's kissed boys before. Is it weird that I wanted to see if he'd kiss me?"

Renji and Sanada exchange dubious looks, and then in unison they shake their heads.

"Not good enough."

"That's not like you at all."

Renji takes Yukimura's hand and pulls him down to sit with them. "I don't object to being an experiment for you. But if you genuinely wanted to kiss me out of curiosity, you'd have waited until we were actually alone. And if your motivation was purely romantic, you'd have picked Genichirou over myself. Unless this was a plan to make him jealous?"

Yukimura bursts into laughter at Sanada's expression -- a complicated mix of horror, embarrassment and curiosity.

"Alright, maybe I did think that Genichirou would get jealous. But over _you_ , not me."

Sanada mutters that he likes _girls_. Yukimura and Renji ignore him.

"I think you watched far too many romantic dramas in hospital, Seiichi."

Yukimura hits him gently in the shoulder.

"I didn't know what else to do to make him realise he likes you. Besides, I also really did want to kiss you."

"You did?" Renji seems surprised; Yukimura isn't sure why. "Well, we can do it again, if you like."

Yukimura glances at Sanada quickly -- Sanada is covering his face in dismay at this conversation, but hasn't actually voiced an objection -- and nods. Renji leans forward, and given that they have an audience Yukimura is expecting the kiss to be showy, rather than intimate. He's wrong; Renji slides a hand into his hair and pulls him closer and then Yukimura isn't thinking about anything except how good kissing feels for a while. It's only when he hears himself make a faintly embarrassing moaning noise that he pulls back.

Both of them look at Sanada almost immediately, who is looking bright red with embarrassment but also absolutely fascinated. He coughs, and mutters something about _thinking_ he likes girls, anyway. They both grin, and Renji drapes an arm over Yukimura's shoulders as he says that clearly Genichirou isn't homophobic after all; he certainly didn't seem to object to seeing that. Yukimura leans into Renji's side and grins brightly at Sanada as he agrees.

Sanada flushes even deeper and then asks them not to do this in his parents' house, please.

Renji says that's basically permission for them to do it anywhere else. Yukimura laughs, slides out from under Renji's arm, and sprawls out on his back on the futon ungracefully, grinning up at them both. He feels lightheaded with potential. He can barely put words to the ideas tumbling into his head. They both look at him in ways he recognises as fond; Renji with a faint smile of amusement, Sanada with a slightly resigned expression.

"We should always be like this," Yukimura says, as he looks up at them. "The three of us together, I mean. No matter what we're doing."

Sanada frowns, and says, "You do recall what you were doing with Renji just a moment ago, right?

Renji stretches and shrugs. "Kissing? It probably wouldn't have happened if you weren't here. And Seiichi wouldn't have kissed me in the first place if not to provoke you."

Yukimura isn't quite sure Renji's right; he thinks he might have kissed Renji anyway someday. But saying that would contradict Renji's argument, so he lets it slide.

"So perhaps Seiichi's right. The three of us work better all together." Renji sounds like he's picking his words carefully. "We could share."

"I like girls," says Sanada yet again, pointedly.

"So do I," says Renji. "Masaharu and Yagyuu both definitely do too, based on my past observations, and it's clearly not stopping them. Does it matter? It's not about liking one or the other, it's about liking certain people more regardless."

Sanada blinks. "Niou and Yagyuu?"

Yukimura sighs; this is the wrong time to get sidetracked. "Yes. Do _not_ tell anyone."

"Of course, I'm not stupid." Sanada looks more thoughtful than anything else. "That must be new."

"Never mind them; I'm serious about what I said about _us_. Bluntly speaking, I can't imagine picking one of you over the other. And I think Renji feels the same way."

Renji laughs. "But Sanada doesn't, though until recently my data would suggest he was more than a little in love with you at least."

"And here I was thinking all this blushing lately meant he had a crush on you."

"Maybe he just doesn't like the idea of acting on it. Maybe my kissing put him off."

Sanada sighs heavily. "Shut up, both of you."

"Not unless you're willing to explain."

"Explain what? Kissing Renji felt good, I'll admit it. I wouldn't have been nearly as freaked out if it had been horrible."

"Oh. Really?"

"But it doesn't matter -- I can't think about guys that way, I really can't. It would totally break my mother's heart if I did anything like that, and my father would never forgive me. And I'll still have to find a girl to date, eventually."

Yukimura frowns. Sanada is right; Yukimura's family would likely accept him liking boys grudgingly and Renji's parents wouldn't notice -- and would probably ignore it deliberately if they did -- but Sanada's family treated both their sons as if they were the sole heirs of the family name. Sanada's mother was probably planning the omiai already. Dating boys was not likely to be even remotely acceptable under those circumstances.

"And now you're suggesting this, this _insanity_? There'd be no redeeming myself if they found out. My family would disown me so fast I'd be sleeping on benches by tomorrow morning. And I actually like my family."

Yukimura pouts. "So I don't even get to kiss you before you discard the idea."

Sanada gives him a disbelieving look. "Don't joke about this. It's not funny."

"I wasn't joking. I'm missing out here; Renji got to kiss you, after all. It's very unfair."

Renji gets up and leans against the door, casually, preventing any possible intrusions. "You won't hear the end of it until you do what he wants, Genichirou."

"You two are such bullies," accuses Sanada, but there's a genuine smile on his face as he bends over and kisses Yukimura. He probably intends it to be very brief, but Yukimura wraps his arms around Sanada determinedly and opens his mouth into the kiss -- he might only get this one chance, there's no way he's going to let it end quickly. It's a clumsier kiss than Renji's, if Yukimura's honest, but it escalates very swiftly into something that contains real desire. When Yukimura releases Sanada, they're both breathless, and he stares down at Yukimura for a while wordlessly without moving. Yukimura, on a whim, places his hand on Sanada's neck to feel his pulse; it's pounding nearly as fast as Yukimura's own is.

Sanada scrambles back upright suddenly, and hauls Yukimura up into a sitting position too. Renji abandons his post at the door and folds himself elegantly down next to them.

"I see why you liked watching us earlier," he says to Sanada conversationally, who looks rather flatteringly as if the entire world has changed due to kissing Yukimura. "Seiichi especially looks lovely like that."

Yukimura can feel his cheeks warming even further; he must be an interesting shade of pink what with the kissing and now embarrassment on top of it. Then it occurs to him that he's not gotten to see Renji and Sanada kiss yet, but if Renji and he can convince Sanada then he might get to, and the thought of that is not helping him blush any less.

"We can't tell anyone, obviously," he says to distract himself. "Like Niou and Yagyuu haven't. It'll have to be secret."

Sanada stares at him. "You're talking like I've agreed to this whole thing already."

"You haven't? Maybe we should kiss again. Or Renji can kiss you. He's very convincing."

"If it's a consolation," says Renji, "if anyone ever finds out and does try and spread rumours, do you think anyone would believe them? The three demons of Rikkai together? Absurd, clearly lies based on envy of our friendship and prestige."

Sanada eyes Renji for a moment, then sighs and shakes his head. "I do want to say yes; it's crazy and doomed but I really do. But it would be utterly humiliating for my family if we were discovered."

"Genichirou, I promise you, they're not going to know unless you decide they should. Nobody will."

Yukimura nods; he's confident that between the three of them, they can deal with any crisis that can be thrown at them. Except, he admits, for that one bratty crisis in middle school, but how many Echizens can one lifetime possibly throw at them?

Sanada closes his eyes, and takes a shaky breath. "Alright," he says quietly. "It's what I want, and you know that, so you won't let me get away with turning you down. But," and he holds a hand up warningly, "no more kissing in this house when anyone else is home. Even with one of us guarding the door. It just feels weird."

"My house is probably okay if we pick our times carefully," says Yukimura thoughtfully. "But never at school. Or in public."

Renji nods. "My house, for most things, I think."

"Wait, how _did_ you find out about Niou and Yagyuu, come to think of it? They didn't tell you, I assume."

Yukimura smiles. "By noticing the difference between this," and he taps Sanada on the leg, as if emphasising a point, "and _this_ ," and his hand lingers for slightly longer this time, as if unwilling to break contact -- not quite a caress, but on the way there.

"That's pretty flimsy evidence," says Sanada, unimpressed. "Niou's always touched Yagyuu a lot; isn't that just him trying to be weird like usual?"

"Yagyuu confirmed it when I asked," says Yukimura, shrugging. "But I doubt a lot of people would notice anything different."

Sanada sighs, and flops onto his back next to Yukimura. "Sheesh. There must be something in the water at the tennis courts."

"Makes you wonder if Seigaku are all at it like rabbits," says Yukimura, and Renji smirks but -- intriguingly enough -- refuses to offer any further comment.

Sanada snorts. "At this rate, I wouldn't be surprised if Marui and Jackal are secretly pining for each other. Or maybe our captain's humping his doubles partner. Or Akaya's been hiding a boyfriend from us all along."

"Trust me, he hasn't," says Renji wryly. "He wouldn't whine so much about how much he's looking forward to being able to date if he was."

Sanada gets up to pull out his spare futon. He sets it up next to his own and then pauses, as if struck by a thought. Yukimura realises the issue after a moment -- they've always managed to sleep with three of them fitting -- sideways -- on the two futons before, but suddenly that seems a bit suggestive.

"It's fine, Genichirou," he says, trying not to giggle. "We promise not to ravish you. Just don't wake me up when you get up, okay?"

They take turns to get changed, and in the darkness after they've gotten under their blankets, Sanada says, "Seriously though, if Akaya's really been hiding a boyfriend from us, I'm going to get us all admitted to check for collective brainwashing."

Yukimura hits him with a pillow, and falls asleep between the two of them.


	7. Niou

Yagyuu's father organises a trip that Yagyuu can't get out of that Saturday, leaving Niou at a loose end. In the end he meets up with Marui, Jackal and Kirihara, who are hanging out at the arcade for the afternoon. Kirihara is bursting with excitement about starting at the high school. Jackal startles them all by offhandedly saying he's not sure he even wants to rejoin the tennis team; Marui smacks him on the arm and says he's spent the last year picking up tennis balls waiting for his preferred doubles partner to get back, there is no way Jackal is allowed to duck out now.

Kirihara passes on Yukimura's observations about how many spaces are available on the team. It makes them all thoughtful. Jackal asks Niou, too casually, if Yagyuu will be rejoining the team; Niou doesn't have the heart to blame them for wondering if someone will duck out of the competition entirely. Niou is honest; he says he hopes so but it depends on Yagyuu's exam scores so it's not a given. Marui sulks a bit - if Jackal's not joining and Yagyuu's not joining then he doesn't really have anyone there he enjoys playing doubles with; Niou and Kirihara's styles are too aggressive to mesh with his properly and Yanagi stops him from doing showy tricks. Niou makes vaguely sympathetic noises but Marui scoffs; Niou's been fine in singles or playing with Yanagi, he shouldn't have any worries.

Niou bites his tongue on the retort that he'd still rather play doubles with Yagyuu.

He texts Yagyuu later on, when the four of them are eating, to ask how his trip is going. Yagyuu replies _We have walked a lot and my sister is threatening mutiny if we see another temple. Are we meeting up tomorrow? My mother wants to know if I'm staying at your place._

Niou excuses himself and calls his mother from outside the cafe; she's amenable to yet another overnight visit but says they can't still possibly be studying. Niou explains that they want to just relax and play videogames and talk about tennis; his mother laughs and says fine.

He texts Yagyuu back _yep u r now_

_Until tomorrow then._

He can't stop himself from grinning in anticipation as he re-enters, and Kirihara asks if he was on the phone to a girl. Niou leers at Kirihara, and then says, "Yeah, your mother".

There's a brief, good-natured scuffle, and then Kirihara says, "but seriously, you guys kinda suck -- I'd expect at least one of my sempais to be getting some action, but every time I ask you're all single losers."

"Hey, I've dated this year," says Niou defensively. "I broke up with the last girl 'cause she was kind of weird, that's all."

"She was an otaku, right?" says Marui. "Really into manga."

"Into boy-on-boy manga," says Niou, and the others all pull vaguely disgusted faces. "But she was hot and a good kisser, so hey, it was worth it."

Marui nods, as if conceding the point. "I asked out a couple of girls, but no luck. And the ones that actually liked me were scary."

Jackal shrugs. "I'm still sort of dating a girl back in Brazil. She's really cool. We email a lot. So I'm not looking for anyone here."

"Huh." Well. Niou thinks he'd give up on something that long-distance -- all soppy phone calls, no touching -- but hey, more power to Jackal if he's that keen on the girl.

"What about everyone else on the team?" Kirihara asks. " _None_ of you guys ever talk about girls."

"Ah, that's just 'cause we're ashamed of how unstudly we all are at the moment. Lessee," and Niou makes a thoughtful noise. "You know Sanada had a girlfriend? Until he ditched her for tennis, anyway."

"You're kidding."

"Nope. He asked her out again after Nationals and she shredded him in public for being an idiot. It was beautiful. I nearly proposed to her on the spot."

Jackal makes an impressed noise. Kirihara shakes his head. "Lame."

"Yukimura's been like a ninja of not dating. Girls confess to him all the time, with notes and in person -- it's kind of sickening -- but he just ignores it."

"Yeah? Why not?"

"No idea. I think he's actually in love with his tennis racket. I swear, I saw him shed a tear last time he broke a string."

Giggles; Niou feels slightly cruel but honestly he can't imagine Yukimura caring about anything more than he cares about tennis.

"Yagyuu had a girlfriend for ages -- most of the year, really -- but she ditched him a month or so ago. And no, he won't tell me why. She was kind of a prude though; I dunno, maybe he finally got frustrated enough to try to cop a feel." Niou shrugs, then realises he has to mention Yanagi or it's going to look weird. "Oh, and Yanagi dated tons of girls. Didn't keep any of them for much longer than a week though."

Marui gives Niou a pointed sideways look, but doesn't comment.

"Wow. I'm surprised, I gotta say," says Jackal. "I mean, Sanada having a girlfriend is crazy enough. But Yanagi as some kind of girl magnet?"

"What's wrong with Yanagi?" asks Niou before he can stop himself, and Marui chokes on a somewhat-suppressed laugh that makes Kirihara and Jackal look at him in confusion.

"He's just a bit... aloof," says Jackal. "I dunno. Not really approachable?"

Kirihara shakes his head. "Yeah, but he's really good at talking. I bet he's pretty smooth on dates."

Marui smirks at Niou, who shakes his head warningly.

"Alright, what's going on here?" asks Jackal. "You two clearly know something about Yanagi that you're not sharing. Spill."

Niou glares at Marui, who returns the glare but says after a moment, "Okay, fine, but this is not something you two are allowed to freak out about. Yukimura nearly bit my ear off when I made jokes, so you're gonna have to deal. And don't go telling anyone about it either."

They nod, fascinated.

"Right," Marui says to Niou, "is that enough?"

"I guess it's gonna have to be, you asshole," says Niou. Fuck. He can't _not_ tell them now. "So, hey, _I_ went on a date with Yanagi."

Jackal and Kirihara both look uncomprehending for a moment, and then realisation dawns slowly.

Jackal speaks first. "You don't mean a double date or something, huh. You went on an actual date with him."

"Mm, remember my fujoshi girlfriend? I thought playing along a little might, uh, inspire her."

"Really? That's messed up. How was it? Did it work?"

"Um, well. It was alright. Don't look at me like that -- honestly, we just hung out together for a bit, and called that a date. But my girlfriend got all kinds of excited over it, so yeah, it worked."

"And _then_ Yanagi went out on a date with Sanada," says Marui, airily.

Kirihara looks utterly bewildered. "Is everyone gay for Yanagi-sempai now or something?"

Marui laughs, and Niou shakes his head, thinking fast. "I think that was just a joke really; y'know, how clearly if it's just any two of Yanagi and Sanada and Yukimura hanging out together for a day then it must be a date. Anyway, that's the big secret; it's not _that_ funny, Bunta, shut up."

"Man." Jackal stirs his drink with his straw. "Well, now I know that Yanagi is irresistible, I'll be careful not to fall head over heels for him like the rest of you."

"Shut up, it wasn't like that."

Kirihara gives Niou a vaguely disgusted look. "But a _date_. Did you, like, kiss and all that? Gross."

"Yeah, because if I had I'd really tell you guys. Don't be stupid, you think I'm homo or something?"

They all take that as a no, as Niou had hoped, and speculate about whether Sanada and Yanagi made out (they decide not, maybe because the idea is too horrific to them all). Niou feels like he only just dodged a bullet and also like he should maybe warn Yanagi and Sanada. He considers for a moment -- then tries writing a message to Yanagi under the table, but it feels weirdly like an accusation no matter how he phrases it. Sanada never checks his phone, as far as Niou knows.

He gives up and texts Yukimura instead. _bunta spilled to jackal and akaya about yanagis dates w me & sanada. he swore them to secrecy but still awkward. can u tell them?_

He gets a text after about twenty minutes, thankfully while they're leaving so it's not too obviously connected to the conversation. _Done. Thanks for the headsup. How'd they react?_

 _ok,_ Niou sends back from the music store about five minutes later (the others are roaming the rock and pop aisles, so he takes refuge in the jazz section), _i made it sound silly not homo. think they found it funny._

_Good work. They'll say thanks. Fewer laps for you in club next year._

_\o/ tell them to try not to kill bunta. i'll prank him later._

There's no reply, and Niou considers that enough of an answer. He deletes the conversation, and while he's at it, clears out some of the texts he and Yagyuu have sent each other recently; he's been damned lucky that none of the others picked up and poked through his phone idly. There's nothing, well, pornographic -- Yagyuu wouldn't send him that sort of thing, and would ignore it if Niou sent it to him -- but some of their messages are kind of... flirty. Plus -- and he's horrified to see that he's done it at all -- there're just a couple of kisses and heart-marks in his messages. Really smart thinking if you're trying to hide that you're a bit more than just friends.

He stares broodily at a shelf, not really seeing the display. Now he gets why Yagyuu keeps muttering about being worried someone will find out; it's not paranoia if they're really out to get you, huh. Oh well. Too late to do more damage control. He just hopes Jackal and Kirihara can keep their mouths shut, and clearly he and Yagyuu need to make sure they're perfect on this whole public image deal. It crosses his mind that Yagyuu saying Niou'd be worth the hassle way back when was actually a pretty big deal. Huh. Yagyuu calls him a hopeless romantic whenever he talks about stuff like this, but hell, he thinks Yagyuu's worth any amount of trouble too; Yagyuu's important and Niou's not going to navel-gaze about why, he just is.

He heads back over to the pop section, where Marui has picked up some godawful girl group CDs and is mooning over the photos of the girls on the back. Niou rolls his eyes and tells Marui to just download some porn like a normal guy would, and Kirihara sniggers from the other side of the shelf and then asks Niou to help him choose between two CDs he wants. The rest of the day goes by too slowly for Niou's taste; in the end he declares himself uninterested in the film the others pick out and says he has to get home to help his mother anyway.

At home he mooches around in a vaguely grumpy fashion until his mother tells him to get out from under her feet; after considering his options he grabs his racket and goes out to practise serving against a wall. If Yagyuu does get to join the team -- and he will, he's smart and he studies and there's no way his exam results will be low enough to worry his parents -- they'll have to practise a bunch together before the new term; Yukimura is sure it's ranking matches this year, and that means being good enough to beat out most of the current regulars.

Yagyuu's _awesome_. It'll be fine. It really will.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The update schedule's going to slip around over Christmas (like today! A day early!) - there are chapters written and ready to post, but I'll be away and might not be able to post updates on time. I'll do my best.


	8. Yukimura

Yukimura and Sanada go over to Renji's house; Renji's family have gone out for the afternoon and Renji has elected to stay behind. He even asks permission for Yukimura and Sanada to visit, to allay Sanada's vague discomfort about sneaking around.

Yukimura arrives a little early, and they agree that they shouldn't push Sanada into too much today; he's been the twitchiest of them about the whole arrangement, and it might take him a while to adapt. When Sanada arrives, Renji is making tea for them all, while Yukimura pokes at one of the plants that Renji's mother always seems to have trouble getting to blossom. He opens the door with the plant in his hand, and beckons Sanada inside absentmindedly -- he's wondering if cutting back more of the leaves near the base of the plant would help.

Sanada takes off his shoes, pulls off his cap, and sits down at the kitchen counter just as Renji pours out the tea. He stares into his cup blankly and then begins to chuckle. Yukimura looks up and asks what's funny, and Sanada says he's not sure he should admit this but suddenly he can imagine what it would be like for them all to live together one day.

Renji smiles, and Yukimura sets down the plant and picks up his tea, and they all drink together.

"How _was_ work today, darling?" asks Renji, as he sets his cup down.

Sanada mock-scowls for a moment, then says, "My grandfather asked if I want to do anything to celebrate exams being over. It feels weird that it's nearly the end of the school year."

Yukimura nods, and then can't resist teasing just a little. "And to think, you started it with one girlfriend and ended it with two boyfriends."

Sanada sets down his cup and exhales heavily. "I'm going to need time to get used to that thought."

"Anything we can do to help?" asks Renji archly. "I can suggest some very direct acclimatisation methods if you wish."

Sanada freezes, and Yukimura laughs. He puts down his own cup, and takes Sanada's hand in his own. "Renji, I thought you wanted to avoid scaring him."

"If insinuations like that actually scare him, then we're never going to get anywhere." He puts down his tea gently. "May I kiss you, Genichirou?"

Sanada nods, apparently struck dumb, and Renji steps around the counter. Yukimura watches in unashamed curiosity; they both look very focused and serious at first as their mouths meet, and then they relax into the kiss. It's fascinating and stirring and strange all at once. It isn't until Renji's hand reaches for his own that he realises he's no longer holding Sanada's; Renji's hand tightens as if reassuring Yukimura he hasn't been forgotten.

The kiss isn't hurried, but as soon as it breaks Renji lifts their linked hands to his mouth, pressing a kiss to the back of Yukimura's hand in a very graceful gesture that makes Yukimura's stomach flip strangely.

"I... think I feel rather lucky," says Yukimura, feeling that it's a bit inadequate.

Renji tugs Yukimura's arm so that he steps closer to them, and then again so that he's _between_ them. "All three of us," he says. "Imagine what we can accomplish together."

Sanada captures them both in a sudden hug. Yukimura is squeezed between them, his face pressed against Sanada's collarbone, and the air is forced out of his lungs for a moment. He finds he doesn't mind, somehow.

"You're both absolutely insane," proclaims Sanada. "And you've dragged me into your madness. I'm doomed."

Yukimura swears he can feel the smile on Renji's lips as he presses a kiss to the nape of Yukimura's neck. He shivers, and sees Sanada grin in response.

"Kiss him, will you," Renji says to Sanada over Yukimura's shoulder, sliding his hands round to Yukimura's chest. "Otherwise he might notice me trying to undress him, and we can't have that."

Sanada laughs, and slides his hand under Yukimura's jaw, forcing him to look away from Renji's hands and into Sanada's eyes. "Why is it that he can make things like that sound so perfectly reasonable?"

"It is reasonable," says Renji, who has managed to unbutton three of Yukimura's buttons in quick succession but now pauses. "Although perhaps not down here, now you mention it. Kiss him anyway, and then we can go upstairs."

Sanada nods, his eyes full of amusement, and Yukimura can't quite suppress the giggles that bubble up from inside. He lets Sanada kiss him until he stops laughing, as Renji undoes more buttons. Sanada gently kisses his forehead and over his closed eyelids and the bridge of his nose, as one of Renji's hands slides under his shirt to rest over his heart. He reaches his own hand up to cover it and Sanada does the same, and for a moment everything seems to fade away except the three of them, connected as one.

His phone beeps, suddenly, and they're all startled enough to break contact. He apologetically checks his phone and his heart jumps in sudden panic at Niou's message. He shows the other two, and they both sober immediately.

They stare at the message together. Niou doesn't make it sound like a true crisis, but still, this probably isn't a good thing. Renji makes them wait a little while before responding, "so you have time to be calling us," he says quietly, and Sanada's mouth turns downwards into stern unhappiness.

Niou's response that it's being taken as a joke is a relief. Yukimura thinks that Niou is one of the smoothest talkers they know when, and he's heavily motivated to help besides; if anyone can make it sound like it wasn't serious, he can. Renji agrees, and speculates that they'll probably get a few teasing remarks from Jackal and maybe Kirihara but if Sanada looks grumpy enough they'll drop it.

"Homo," says Sanada thoughtfully. "Another word it's going to be hard to get used to."

Renji looks up from the reply he's typing for Yukimura to send ("Don't promise him that," protests Yukimura over his shoulder. "I'm not captain, I can't be giving special treatment") and frowns. "So don't get used to it. It's not precisely accurate, and anyone who calls you that seriously is not worth caring about anyway."

Yukimura's phone beeps again, and after reading Niou's response he sets down the phone carefully and looks down at himself, his shirt pulled askew and unbuttoned to his navel.

"Well," he says, brightly. "That ruined the moment. Any chance we can recapture it before I freeze to death?"

Renji glances at Sanada, who is still brooding. "It's no good," he says to Yukimura. "I don't think he's in the mood. But if you'll settle for just me, we can go upstairs and see how long it takes for his curiosity to win out over his pride."

"Don't you two take anything seriously?" asks Sanada huffily.

"Only the important things," says Renji. "Like you two. And world domination. And books. And tea."

"In ascending order," says Sanada, still sounding grumpy, but when Yukimura pulls on his arm he allows himself to be ushered upstairs by them both.

In Renji's room, they all hesitate for a moment, and then Yukimura laughs and pushes Sanada down onto Renji's futon, then sits on him. Yukimura turns and pulls Renji down so he's half-sitting, half-lying next to them.

He grins at them both. "I think we need to distract Genichirou," he says to Renji. Renji nods, and looks at Sanada speculatively.

"Sit up," says Renji, and Sanada obediently sits up as much as Yukimura's presence on top of him allows. Renji pulls off everything Sanada is wearing on his top half in one go, rather unceremoniously, and tosses it to the side. Renji follows this by removing his own sweatshirt; apparently he wasn't wearing anything underneath that. He sits behind Sanada, and pulls him backwards so Sanada is sprawled against him rather ungracefully; Yukimura shifts himself so he's straddling Sanada's legs.

He pauses, suddenly struck by the fact that Sanada's naked chest is right there in front of him. He's shared changing rooms with Sanada often enough, so really it shouldn't be a novelty to see it -- but it still feels like it is. He stares for a moment, admiring the shape of the muscles. Sanada flushes under the scrutiny, and when Yukimura glances upwards, Renji's expression is just as fascinated as his own must be.

Yukimura runs his hand across Sanada's stomach, thoughtfully. "Well, Renji, what would you suggest?"

Renji brushes his lips across the back of Sanada's neck, and looks up through his eyelashes at Yukimura. "You're leading, Seiichi. In the absence of any firm plans, just kiss him."

Yukimura does that, and the three of them spend rather a long time trading kisses and light caresses between them. Renji seems determined to keep the pace of things slower than Yukimura's instincts are demanding, but he supposes there are benefits to taking their time. He's able to admire them both properly at this pace, for a start. Sanada is solid where Renji is lean, and he revels in the contrast between their forms.

Renji is somehow keeping an eye on the time; he notes with reluctance that his parents are due back soon and they should really put their clothes back on and go look wholesome downstairs. Sanada grouses a bit about them both being horrible teases, and then starts to pull on his various layers of clothing again. Yukimura finds his shirt underneath them when Sanada moves; it's appallingly wrinkled. He shrugs it on anyway, optimistically. Renji shakes his head when he see it.

"You're too distractingly rumpled," he accuses. "How are we supposed to go back downstairs and act innocent and pure in front of my parents with you looking like we've spent the afternoon--"

"--ravishing me?" asks Yukimura, as Renji throws one of his own shirts at Yukimura; it's a bit too long in the torso but at least the sleeves are short enough that it's unremarkable.

"If my mother asks, you spilled something on your own shirt. Actually, we'll put it in the laundry, just in case."

Sanada smooths down his hair in the mirror, and then looks over at Yukimura. "Your hair is a complete mess," he says, with a grin, and he's right; Renji finds a comb and Yukimura sets about untangling the knots.

"Next time," says Sanada, "we should bother to fold our clothes."

Yukimura snorts derisively, and pulls the comb through a particularly nasty tangle with a wince. He's not sure if it was Renji or Sanada that kept sticking their hands into his hair, but whichever one it was is getting a slap next time they do it, he thinks.

"Next time," Renji says, "you both wear clothes that don't wrinkle. Seiichi's hair is just doomed unless he cuts it short. Please don't, by the way," he adds.

"I agree, don't," says Sanada, "and I like the mess. You're so unruffled usually. This is a refreshing change."

Yukimura straightens his collar, and sticks his tongue out at Sanada. "Let's go be virtuous."


	9. Niou

On the Sunday, Yagyuu is a little earlier than Niou expected. They go out for a walk and end up hanging out on the swings in a little playground nearby; there are some kids messing around in the sandpit but Niou -- even in as paranoid a mode as he feels right now -- is pretty sure they're not going to be reporting back to anyone.

Niou recounts pretty much the whole of the conversation with their their team-mates. Yagyuu looks thoughtful, and asks if Niou's feeling okay.

"Don't be stupid, of course I am. But it made me think you're right, we need to be careful."

"More careful than we're being at the moment?"

"I was thinking we should switch identity. Like, just for a day next week; it's nearly the end of the year, if people notice they'll think it's just a prank."

"...forgive me for asking, but how does that help us?"

"You're almost as good at being me as I am. Watching you be me will help me remember how I used to act around you."

Yagyuu stares at him for a moment. "Your craziness must be contaminating me. That almost makes sense."

"C'mon, it's worth a go. And it'll be fun even if it doesn't work out -- you'll get to see a whole different classroom for a day." Niou grins. "Besides, you know you like wearing that wig."

"If you try to kiss me while I'm dressed as you, I will never let you live it down."

"Huh, hadn't even thought about that angle. Kinky."

Yagyuu stands up and brushes himself down. "What shall we do with the rest of this afternoon?"

Niou looks thoughtful, but doesn't get up yet. "Do you think you'll be allowed to come back to play tennis?"

"We get exam results tomorrow, Niou-kun. I won't know until then."

"Right, right. I was just thinking we should practise doubles. If you're allowed."

Yagyuu gives Niou a strange look, and then pokes him hard in the shoulder. "You know, even if I can't rejoin the school team, I will still play doubles with you somehow."

"You mean like an independent league thing? They're full of weirdos."

"Well, I don't think my parents would regard that as less time-consuming than the school team anyway. But we could certainly terrorise the street courts together." Yagyuu smiles at Niou, and it's not a very gentlemanly smile at all. "But," and he looks up thoughtfully, "not today. It feels like rain's coming."

"We could break into school, practise on the indoor courts," says Niou, reluctant to drop the idea.

"Yes, we could," says Yagyuu, "but let's save that for next term, when we're both on the team and Yukimura-kun can help prevent us from getting kicked out of school."

Niou pouts. "Fine, fine." He kicks at the ground idly before standing up. "Guess we'll go back to mine then."

"You could sound a bit less reluctant to spend time with me, you know. If you don't feel like it--"

"Nah, it's not that." Niou shakes his head, and sighs. "Sorry, just in a weird mood."

Yagyuu leans against the support pole and tilts his head to one side speculatively. "This was rather a reality check for you, I suppose. That this, what we are, what we've been doing together, it isn't just something people will think is eccentric."

"I guess so. I sort of wasn't thinking about it properly. It wasn't even like they reacted badly, but..."

"But you were confronted with the idea that they could have." Yagyuu pushes his glasses up slightly. "Frankly, I don't think Kuwahara-kun would take it badly anyway -- he's spent the last year back in Brazil, and my suspicion is that they're more liberal about these things there. And the others were just being childish; they'd get over it if they had to."

"Yanagi knows about us, I think."

"Yukimura-kun does, so yes, I suspect so. Sanada-kun too. I can't imagine they wouldn't inform each other."

"That already feels like too many people," Niou mutters.

"At least they're people we trust. It could be much worse." Yagyuu looks up at the sky. "It is genuinely going to rain soon. Come on, make me play one of your pointless fighting games for a while."

They head back, and Niou subjects Yagyuu to an hour or so of console-based violence. Yagyuu's right to suggest it; it clears his head of the muddle that is nesting there. After taking down a few battalions of enemy troops, he feels a lot less concerned generally about what the hell anyone makes of his personal life.

It doesn't last, though -- as soon as they get to his room, Niou locks the door and starts to tug his shirt over his head automatically; Yagyuu stops him and says, "Masaharu, wait."

"Huh?"

"I'm serious: people will judge you differently if they ever find out about us. They'll call you a deviant, a pervert, and worse. If you want to break it off, tell me now, please."

Niou makes a rude noise, and pulls off his shirt anyway. "You think I care what other people think of me?"

Yagyuu smiles wryly. "I think yes, sometimes you do."

Niou tugs at Yagyuu's belt buckle. "I don't want to think about it. I want you. Can't I just want you and not have the rest matter?"

Yagyuu presses a light kiss to his forehead, and Niou -- to his horror and shame -- feels his eyes go itchy, as if he's about to cry. "Let's just sit down for a while, I'm not doing anything while you're like this."

They sit on Niou's bed, and Niou buries his head in Yagyuu's shoulder. He's always liked being unusual, liked people looking at him for being strange, liked being the kid who manipulates how people see him. That's who he is, right? He can deal with the repercussions. Yagyuu makes soothing noises and rubs his back softly, and Niou kind of wants to punch him for that because it's making that prickly feeling worse to be comforted.

"Ugh. I'm not going to _cry_ ," he mutters after a while. "I just need to calm down. Can't believe I'm the one freaking out here, anyway."

"I already had my big panic over this particular thing before you broke up with your girlfriend." Niou turns his head to glare, and Yagyuu has the grace to smile apologetically. "I'm more paranoid than you. I was concerned about your reputation when you were with Yanagi-kun, in fact."

Niou sits up, and nods. "Yeah, I remember. Ugh." He scrubs at his face with both hands. "Right, think I'm feeling better now."

Yagyuu looks at him dubiously. "Really?"

"Sure. Most people already think I'm a freak, anyway. And they think you're too uptight to have a sex drive. Yes, they're wrong," he says, before Yagyuu can reply, "but they still think it, so even if they think _I'm_ into _you_ , they won't believe you'd do anything."

"I'm not so certain. People probably thought we were deviants of some sort the first time we admitted to switching places," says Yagyuu thoughtfully. "I'm not suggesting we start attending school hand-in-hand, but to a large extent it's perhaps rather too late already."

Niou laughs, and then tugs at Yagyuu's sweater. "Right, I'm really done giving any kind of fuck what anyone else thinks for now. Bed. I want to not really _think_ for a while."

Yagyuu, thankfully, obliges him.


	10. Yagyuu

The exam results are given out on Monday morning. The public results aren't posted in the corridor until later, but their teachers give them personal results sheets first thing in the morning. Niou texts Yagyuu repeatedly all morning until Yagyuu finds a chance to send him a message back without his teacher noticing. 

_2nd in year._

Niou is outside his classroom door before breaktime actually starts, somehow. Yagyuu hands Niou his detailed results sheet, and Niou scans it and grins delightedly, then thrusts his own at Yagyuu. It turns out Niou's done astonishingly well himself. He's ninth-ranked in their year; Yagyuu actually double-takes and peers closely in case he's misread the results. Niou's physics score is actually higher than his, and apparently he got full marks in maths.

Niou preens at Yagyuu's obvious startlement. "I know, I'm a genius. Well, also, I studied. You're not the only one who wants to go somewhere other than Rikkaidai after senior high, you know."

Yagyuu feels a little guilty for being so surprised -- he's always known Niou was clever, but Niou has never seemed particularly interested in turning his intelligence towards academic work. He's never seemed concerned about raising his scores higher than necessary to keep his mother from complaining. In fact, now Yagyuu thinks about it, Niou's never mentioned _any_ sort of ambitions or aspirations for after high school. Yagyuu tries to imagine Niou as a university student, and is surprised at how easy it is.

"Marui did okay, Jackal passed -- only just in some, but he passed -- and Sanada did well. I think he got a lower lit score than he was hoping for, but everything else was good. And, uh, I think Maeda got pretty high scores, but I guess maybe you don't care about those."

"You're right, I don't. Yukimura was happy too; he was in the top twenty I think."

"Yeah?" Niou is practically bouncing. "C'mon then, I've done the obligatory gossip share and you know I don't really give a damn about anyone else right now. Call your parents. I wanna know if you're allowed on the team now."

Yagyuu looks back at Niou's scores, and shakes his head. "Not yet. Niou-kun, do you think your parents would mind you coming back to mine this evening for a while? If you're getting grades this good, I think my parents would be interested."

"Really?" Niou takes a second to catch up with Yagyuu's train of thought, but then he smirks. "Oh, huh, I get to be a good influence on you? Or less of a bad one, at least?"

"I think it'd convince them that studying together is good for us both."

"Sounds good to me."

Yagyuu's parents, that evening, are delighted by his year rank -- his father shrewdly guesses Yanagi is ranked first, before Yagyuu can even mention him -- and they agree to allow Yagyuu's participation in the tennis team next year. Yagyuu is bowing his thanks when his father adds a request: he resigns if he is not made a regular before the championships start up. Yagyuu can see Niou tense, as if ready to argue. He bows acceptance again before Niou can say anything; it's really not an unreasonable request from his parents' perspective.

He allows his mother to make delighted noises about his results for a few more minutes before remarking that Niou-kun has also shown himself to be a diligent student. Thankfully his mother is polite enough to then enquire about Niou's scores, and in fact nearly polite enough to convincingly mask her surprise at how good they are.

Yagyuu allows himself to be privately, and slightly hypocritically, offended on Niou's behalf; he knows his mother at least is very fond of Niou -- his father is harder to read, though he seems to not disapprove, at least -- but he suspects they've always regarded him as the quirky oddball friend who doesn't do the academic thing as well as their own son does. Now, though, well, Niou has potential. He can read the thought on his mother's face; she knows her son enjoys competing with Yanagi, maybe now he'll be competing with Niou too and that'll make him perform even better.

His mother knocks on his bedroom door a bit later on. Thankfully Niou and he are both fully-dressed and relatively un-mussed when she opens the door. She says that his father would like to take both Niou-kun and Hiroshi-kun out for dinner tonight -- for sushi, perhaps; would Niou's parents mind?

When Niou calls her to ask, Niou's mother is happy to agree to an exchange; Yagyuu's father can take Niou out for dinner tonight if Niou's family can take Yagyuu out with them the next evening. Yagyuu's mother seems to find this very amusing; she hugs Niou impulsively and says that his mother must find it as pleasing to share in her son as she does to share Niou.

They have an hour before they will leave for dinner; Yagyuu's pretty sure Niou's plans for that hour match his own, and they retreat back to his bedroom at high speed.

"An hour, huh?" says Niou, slightly breathlessly, when Yagyuu lets him speak again.

"Probably less," admits Yagyuu. "If you're planning on impressing me with your stamina, now is not the time."

They remember to wedge the door shut, and that turns out to be fortuitous because Niou has barely managed to unzip Yagyuu's pants when there's a knock at the door. They're already on the bed, and Niou's half-naked, but he scrambles back into his shirt as Yagyuu says in a calm voice that surprises himself, "Yes?"

"Hiroshi, before you go out, can you help me with my schoolwork?"

Yagyuu sighs, and zips himself up. Niou rolls off the end of the bed and sprawls -- belly-down -- on the floor by the window, as Yagyuu moves his chair out of the way. Yagyuu opens the door only a bit; his sister is in the corridor, clutching a textbook to herself.

"Sayomi, can't it wait until later?"

"I was hoping that Niou-kun could help me too," she pouts, and Yagyuu blinks in faint horror, suddenly noticing that his sister is wearing makeup. She's also wearing a rather low-cut top. He blanches. His little sister is _absolutely not_ allowed to develop a crush on Niou. He opens the door enough that Niou can see her.

Niou takes one look at Sayomi and gives an uncomfortable cough. "Ah, Sayomi-chan, maybe another time? We were kind of in the middle of a project here."

She looks a bit disappointed, but nods with what she probably thinks is a flirtatious smile and walks away. Yagyuu closes the door and wedges the chair back firmly where it was. He studies Niou for a moment, silently, waiting for comment.

"So, um, I guess your sister's finally at that age, huh," says Niou, looking suitably embarrassed. "Wonder how long that's going to last."

Yagyuu sighs. "I think your grades tipped the balance for her. I was kind of hoping she'd think of you as an extra brother. My mother apparently thinks of you as another son, after all." He kneels next to Niou, who shakes his head, rolls over, and starts unbuttoning his shirt again.

"Don't tell me you're blaming her for having good taste," says Niou, as he shrugs off his shirt. "My sister had a budding crush on Sanada until she realised he was only the same age as me; that was pretty awful." He reaches up and plucks off Yagyuu's glasses.

It's always a little weird, that point where Yagyuu's glasses are off and Niou's almost-but-not-quite close enough to see clearly without them. It makes him look soft and fuzzy, which is possibly the least appropriate visual effect his eyesight could bestow on someone in possession of as many brittle and cracked edges as Niou. Yagyuu leans in, and Niou's features come back into focus, and he slowly kisses a line down Niou's chest to his stomach.

Niou gently puts a hand on the back of Yagyuu's neck. "When's the next time we'll have a house to ourselves?" he asks, almost absently, as Yagyuu unbuckles Niou's belt.

Yagyuu pauses, and thinks. "I... I'm not certain. It's unlikely to be very soon, though. Why?"

Niou tugs on Yagyuu's tie. "Ah, I have plans. Naked plans."

Yagyuu's curiosity is piqued, but if Niou's being this vague now then there's no point in trying to get more detail from him. "Let's hope the answer is 'soon'."

They are probably a little less rushed than they really should be, because when Yagyuu's mother calls up to tell them it's time to go they are only _just_ in a presentable state. Yagyuu nurses a slightly bruised elbow and makes a mental note that the floor is less comfortable than his bed, but he suspects he and Niou will end up doing this sort of thing in far less convenient places in future. It's far too easy to lose track of everything except the taste and texture of Niou, once they start kissing.

As Yagyuu had expected, this dinner is mostly an opportunity for his father to question him about his career plans. Niou also gets questioned; he calmly says he's been thinking about computing, maths or physics as focuses -- there are some specialist universities around Kanto that offer interesting courses. Yagyuu's father nods, and suggests Niou also consider Kyushu -- for maths, certainly -- or perhaps Nagoya. Niou looks thoughtful, but he nudges Yagyuu's knee under the table as he says he thinks he'd rather not be quite so far away from his parents.

Yagyuu's father nods, and says that he supposes it's convenient that there are lots of good medical schools in Tokyo -- he thinks Yagyuu's mother would be glad if Yagyuu was nearby too. Yagyuu takes the opportunity to bring up medical specialisations; his father has been suggesting sports medicine as a focus, and Yagyuu thinks it might be a good combination of his interests. Niou pokes at his sushi inelegantly, and seems amused for reasons Yagyuu can't really follow. 

Yagyuu's father asks them about tennis, and Yagyuu says that Niou's place on next year's team is assured given his performance in that year's Nationals. Niou laughs and says that Yagyuu would have been on the team himself if he'd actually applied; he'll be on the team this year for sure because he and Niou are going to practise constantly over the break and next year Yagyuu'll be helping win Nationals himself. Yagyuu's father looks sort of touched by Niou's confidence in Yagyuu's abilities, and Yagyuu thinks his father actually looks quite proud at the idea of him winning Nationals again. It's unusual; his father was proud that his son was a gifted sportsman in middle school, but he'd been far less focused on that than he was on academic success.

The conversation moves onto their friends; Yagyuu's father asks especially after Yukimura -- Niou's parents always do this too; Yagyuu sometimes wonders if they're expecting him to be critically ill again -- and then after Akaya, who Yagyuu tutored a few times. Yagyuu's father then asks about girlfriends, with a casualness that doesn't fool Yagyuu at all. Yagyuu says he doesn't think he has time for another girlfriend right now, which earns him an approving nod. Niou just laughs and says he'd have to meet the right girl, but he doesn't see that happening at the moment, and that earns him another nod.

Niou is dropped off at home after dinner, and Yagyuu's father has driven almost all the way home before he says, almost to himself, "I recall how dear my friends were to me at your age. Niou-kun has a good heart."

Yagyuu is not sure how to respond, so he just nods quietly.

"I am glad you have hobbies and friends, Hiroshi. I know I push you to study, but it's good that you are still able to enjoy your youth. If you don't become a regular on the tennis team next year, I won't insist you quit entirely. I think you can judge for yourself if you need to reclaim that time."

"Thank you, father."

"I do want you to remember, though, that your career should come first, and you only have one attempt at high school. Your hobbies can be picked up again later. A good friend will still be there after you finish your studies. Don't forget that."

Yagyuu nods, dutifully.

"Ah, but I imagine Niou-kun's family will say the same to him, no?"

Yagyuu tries to imagine Niou's father -- a somewhat distant and busy man, though always good-natured and full of jokes when he's around -- _ever_ telling Niou he should consider tennis secondary to studying. It isn't easy. Niou's mother, admittedly, _was_ always insistent that Niou should aim for a good career, but she was incredibly tolerant of Niou's many affectations. The only times she got irritated were if she thought Niou was displaying genuine laziness or thoughtlessness. She seemed to like Yagyuu but had told him repeatedly that he was far too serious and mature for his age; she occasionally joked that between him and Niou they almost made two normal teenage boys.

Dinner the next day with Niou's family is superficially quite different. Yagyuu swiftly realises that, despite the much less formal atmosphere, Niou is being questioned in more depth and detail than Yagyuu was by his father. Niou gives the same sorts of answers as he did the previous evening, but is asked to defend his choices and to consider other universities and focuses. He takes it all pretty calmly, which impresses Yagyuu; he suspects he'd be far less able to maintain calmness in the face of so much divergent opinion about his future.

Niou's mother takes the time to ask Yagyuu if he's _truly_ certain he wants to study medicine. Yagyuu is startled by the question; it's not ever been something up for discussion. He spends the rest of the evening turning the thought over carefully. By the time he's back at Niou's, he's pretty certain he does genuinely want to study medicine, but he resolves to go review the careers library files the next day just in case.

He more or less just flops straight onto Niou's bed when they return to his home, still lost in thought. Niou rolls out the futon as Yagyuu watches. He thinks, idly, that he enjoys watching Niou move; there's a grace and economy to his actions that's rather satisfying. Niou turns and sees Yagyuu gazing at him, then carefully locks the door and kneels by the bed.

He takes Yagyuu's hand, and looks at him expectantly. Yagyuu blinks.

"You've been sort of weird since dinner. What's up? Was it my mother suggesting I go to university overseas?"

"Mm. No. Niou-kun, what am I good at?"

Niou blinks, and then a smirk starts to form and Yagyuu smacks him warningly in the shoulder.

"Ow. Okay, uh. Tennis? Golf? Literature? History? Baking?"

"History? Really?"

"Well, you're good at lots of things. You _like_ literature and English. Is that what you mean?"

Yagyuu squeezes Niou's hand, and then shrugs. "Maybe. I suppose so."

"Considering alternate careers?" Niou pulls his hand away, and then stands up and begins removing his clothes, without a trace of self-consciousness. Yagyuu watches him, amused.

"Well, I _was_. Shockingly, that's not what I'm thinking about any more."

Niou grins at him, as he unbuttons his trousers. "Nice to know your priorities are right, at least."

In the darkness later, Niou says, "You know what? I don't think you really have to decide your future yet. Even if you're wanting to start focusing your studies and all that jazz, it's not impossible to change your mind. Everything can be changed if you want it enough."

Yagyuu snorts; Niou's never been good at making his mind up. Of course he'd think that. "As easily as catchphrases and cellphones, huh."

"Hey, you know the right thing when you find it, I figure." Niou nudges him, and Yagyuu flushes at the implication. "Oh, we're still on for tomorrow, right? You brought everything?"

"Of course, Niou-kun. Tomorrow, you can be me."

"Awesome."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Three chapters at once! Merry Christmas!
> 
> (Unfortunately, I'm posting this many at once because, as mentioned before, I may not be able to post any for the next couple of weeks while I'm on holiday. Sorry! Normal schedule will resume in mid-January or so.)


	11. Niou

Niou, rather belatedly, remembers that it's always been harder to be Yagyuu in school. On the court is one thing, since it's all motion and poise and looking calm under pressure. But being Yagyuu off-court is harder; a different set of tics and routines are needed to project daytime, classroom levels of Yagyuu-ness.

For a start, Yagyuu is a dutiful student -- one with inherent talent and intelligence, yes, but also one that takes pride in putting effort into his studies. Yagyuu works hard and makes schedules and follows deadlines and draws up plans and outlines and drafts and so on. Yagyuu follows rules, or at least, he never obviously breaks them where transgressions might be noticed. Yagyuu's courteous and considerate in a way that makes him quietly popular with students and staff alike. Yagyuu is expected to be on the student council next year; he will undoubtedly be a prefect of some sort. His success is gained by effort, and that effort is visible to others, and has become part of what people expect from him.

The performance is almost entirely _genuine_ , too, which Niou finds hilarious.

For Niou, It's a challenge to look like he cares as much as Yagyuu seems to. By habit, Niou makes a point of drifting idly through his day, as if he barely cares about school. It's all another illusion, of course -- one of his longest-running, and one that the smarter teachers catch onto quite quickly: Niou studies at home so that he can look lazy about class-work without really inconveniencing anyone. It's about image; Yagyuu is cool and collected, but Niou really just has being _cool_ generally, and giving a crap about school isn't part of that.

Niou does his best. He sits primly in Yagyuu's class and diligently takes down neat notes from the board; Niou's teachers don't bother asking him questions usually -- even the teachers who like him wouldn't want to encourage anyone else to treat class the way he does -- but Yagyuu is an active participant in lessons, so Niou has to be attentive for once. It's a pain, but Niou's the one who wanted to switch over in the first place so he's going to have to deal with it. But for future reference, no, this was stupid; Yagyuu can deal with his own damned lessons.

Between classes, one of the girls comes over to Yagyuu's desk and leans forward across it, revealing that several of her shirt buttons are undone and showing off a cleavage that's been inexpertly enhanced with padding. Niou reminds himself not to grin; Yagyuu would probably be more put-off than amused by this. He'd be too polite to scold, however, so Niou settles for what he thinks of as Yagyuu's neutral expression; a very faint smile that could be read as both approving or disapproving depending on context.

"Yagyuu-kun," she begins, and then peers a little closer, and looks confused. Niou pushes Yagyuu's glasses up a little, and winks at her. He and Yagyuu aren't quite as facially similar as their tennis opponents have sometimes claimed -- there is a basic resemblance, sure, but the eyes are a problem even with glasses -- and at this close a range, it's obvious that he's not actually Yagyuu. Hopefully she'll regard it as a charming prank and will let him get away with it if she feels like she's in on the joke.

She giggles, and plants her elbows on the table. "Yagyuu-kun," she sing-songs this time, looking delighted. "Can you help me with my history homework again, please? Maybe at lunchtime?"

He smiles politely, and says, "I'm a little busy today at lunch, I'm afraid; could you remind me tomorrow? I'll see if I can find some time."

She pouts, but winks at him as she does so, and sashays back to her desk. He's careful not to watch her too obviously as she does so; her backside is a better view than her chest but she's really not Yagyuu's type. Or, the type he went for in girls, at least. Presumably _Niou_ qualifies as Yagyuu's 'type' now, and he files that thought away to ponder another time.

There's a maths lesson next, in which Niou tries desperately to look like he's paying attention but really the teacher is awful at teaching this particular topic and it's stuff Niou knows backwards already. He discreetly pulls out a page from Yagyuu's exercise book and doodles a bit, under the guise of working through some of the equations. By lunchtime, he's incredibly ready to leave and do anything else other than sit there.

Yagyuu is leaning on the wall in the corridor outside, fidgeting with his rat-tail. He brightens visibly at seeing Niou, and drapes an arm around his shoulders expansively.

"Roof?"

"It's raining, Niou-kun," says Niou. It probably isn't, but who cares? He doesn't feel like traipsing up all the way up there today.

"Stairwell, then."

There's a sort of alcove under the bottom flight of the stairs leading to the music rooms; Niou and Yagyuu identified this as a relatively private spot to hang out and eat lunch the year before. It's not so out of the way that it'd be questionable for students to be there, but it's a bit dark and the radiators are unreliable; it's usually a bit warmer in the summer and slightly colder in the winter than is ideal. Niou sits, and Yagyuu slumps down bonelessly next to him. Niou fusses around with his bento a bit, because he can predict exactly what Yagyuu will do when he starts eating, and indeed: Niou takes one mouthful of food, and Yagyuu then leans in and gleefully begins plucking out chunks of beef from Niou's meal.

Niou regards him coolly for a moment, and then -- _politely_ \-- reaches out for Yagyuu's lunch and starts eating that instead. Yagyuu laughs, and plucks out a chunk of chicken from under Niou's chopsticks.

"It's more fun if it's someone else's food," he says, as Niou levels a weary look at him.

Niou sighs, and then puts down his food so Yagyuu can pick unimpeded from both boxes. "How were classes this morning?"

"Boring. One of the guys wants me to show him a new card trick tomorrow."

Niou frowns. "I don't suppose you remember his name?"

"Oh, Ara-something? Thinks he's the class clown. Curls his hair." Yagyuu gestures vaguely with his chopsticks.

"Ah, yes. And I'll have to think of something for a girl in my class; she wants some history tuition tomorrow. Well, that's her claim; I suspect she wants a date, and I'm fairly certain that I have better taste."

"Which girl?"

"Chestnutty hair, long. Too much makeup, unbuttons her shirts a lot. She's rather pushy, to my surprise. Maybe I've been more encouraging than I thought lately?"

"Ah, yeah, that's Saya-chan. She chases a different guy every time one tells her to knock it off. Maybe you'll have to be more blunt about saying no in future. It feels a little cruel, though. I'd imagine."

Niou pushes up his glasses and smirks at Yagyuu. "Tsk. Are you too nice to break a girl's heart properly these days, Niou-kun?"

"Ha. Maybe." Yagyuu pushes away his bento box half-eaten and then flops onto his back; Niou has been Yagyuu for just long enough today that he winces at how dusty the back of his uniform is going to be.

"You look restless," he says instead, picking up the discarded box -- Yagyuu has actually left him a fair amount of meat, despite all the theatrics. "Did something happen in class?"

"No. It's just boring." Yagyuu peers out around the edge of the stairs as if checking for eavesdroppers. "How do you stand it? It's really dull just sitting there and not being involved in the lesson."

Niou can't really see what Yagyuu means. "Huh? C'mon, your classes are way worse; you have to pay attention and take notes and answer questions and all that sort of shit."

"At least it keeps me busy. Occupied. It's not like you're going to do much else in class, surely?"

"No, but that's how school works, though, isn't it?" asks Niou, puzzled. "You put up with classes and assignments so you can hang out with friends and play tennis and someday get a job."

Yagyuu sighs, and leans against Niou as if exhausted. "I know something you don't, Niou-kun."

"Yeah?"

"Paying attention actually makes class go faster."

"You're such a weirdo. Only boring people get bored, Yaaagyuu."

Yagyuu hits Niou, and to be fair he probably deserves it for that sort of comment. Niou laughs, and then tugs gently on Yagyuu's false rat-tail. "You told me you'd mock me for this, but y'know, you really do look kinda hot as me."

"Narcissist." Yagyuu grins, and -- somewhat to Niou's surprise -- gives Niou an impulsive kiss on the end of his nose. "But now I have something to be amused about while I'm fighting sleep in your classes, at least."

By the time they leave the stairwell, Niou's feeling a lot less antsy. He thinks he can see the difference that was the point of the switch, the difference in the way Yagyuu's Niou acts around Niou's Yagyuu. He doesn't think Yagyuu has it quite right -- much like his version of Yagyuu, Yagyuu's Niou is a bit too emphatic in his behaviour, like the saturation's been turned up on the image too far -- but it's enough to give Niou some pointers.

And to make him very glad that he can go back to being himself very soon. Being Yagyuu is fun in small doses and in very precise circumstances. But overall? Niou wouldn't really want to swap.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (aaand we're back onto the normal weekly posting schedule, now I'm back from holiday!)


	12. Yukimura

Yukimura is starting to get a bit frustrated.

The three of them have had several leisurely and enjoyable 'dates' so far. These have all involved a lot of shirtless kissing on Renji's futon, except for the one which involved a lot of shirtless kissing on Yukimura's bed while his parents were out.

The kissing is great. Wonderful. Yukimura is a huge fan of the kissing.

But he'd really like to try a bit more than just kissing. He's pretty sure that Sanada does too; hands have started wandering in promising directions.

The thing is that Renji is keeping the brakes on pretty solidly at that point. It's unnerving; Renji was the one to push them at first, but now he keeps redirecting hands which drift south and he gently slows things down when Yukimura finds himself rubbing against thighs or hipbones in a search for more friction. He said, when Yukimura tried raising the subject, that they should wait until they could guarantee a long stretch of uninterrupted time together.

That had probably sounded convincing to Sanada, he supposes. It might even have worked on him. But Yukimura has been dating vicariously through Renji for most of the past year. Renji might be the data expert but Yukimura is perfectly capable of seeing patterns too. Each person Renji has dated is someone he's gone a little further with physically. The first girl got nothing more than a brush of fingers at the end of their second date. The second girl got a hand squeeze at the end of the first date. The third girl got to the third date and Renji held her hand throughout their walk in the park.

Yukimura isn't _precisely_ sure how far Niou and Renji went in that sort of direction, admittedly, because some things he really didn't need to hear. But he can make an educated guess it didn't involve anything below the belt region -- and that Renji had terminated the relationship quickly because Niou would want to go further.

Of course, Yukimura's hugely relieved that he and Sanada don't appear to be subject to Renji's usual unwillingness to date for more than a week or so. And he respects that Renji has boundaries, and he can't imagine Sanada ever wanting to push Renji into anything he was uncomfortable with either. But he's a bit worried. Is this as far as things will ever progress, if Renji only goes a little further with each relationship? And isn't it a little unfair for him to expect Sanada and Yukimura not to go as far as they're willing to with each other?

He doesn't know the answers, doesn't even know if he's really allowed to ask these questions. What are the rules for this sort of thing when there's three of you in a relationship? If it was just him in a relationship with Renji, he'd be waiting, willingly, for Renji to be okay with going further. If it was just him and Sanada on their own, he suspects he'd be spending less time speculating about this sort of thing and more time actually doing it.

That evening, they have another sleepover scheduled at Renji's house; Sanada has headed home briefly to do the chores that must be done to allow him to stay away overnight with a clear conscience. Yukimura and Renji are pressed together in the crowded train carriage, Renji's hand resting lightly on Yukimura's waist.

"So," Yukimura says into Renji's clavicle, after a few minutes of quiet thought, "You know that I'm hoping to actually do more than just kiss one of these days?"

Renji's hand tightens for a moment. "I don't think we should move too fast. It's new territory for all of us."

Yukimura makes a noncommittal sound, and waits until they are off the train to ask, "Are you still gathering data about this level of intimacy?"

Renji gives him a startled look.

"You've told me about every date you've had this year. Should Genichirou and I expect you to leave us when you've internalised enough information about kissing two boys at once?"

"We're not discussing this here," says Renji, with absolute firmness that Yukimura knows even he can't do much to shift. They walk home in silence. Yukimura talks politely to Renji's mother for a while while Renji does some chores, until she tells them to go have fun. It's an abrupt dismissal, but Renji's mother is rather good at dismissal. She has long since dismissed the idea that her son might require much time or attention from her, for instance. Yukimura admits it's handy, but he rather suspects he prefers his own mother's attitude, even if she has taken to hovering a bit too closely in the past couple of years. At least he knows she cares.

"Can we talk now?" asks Yukimura, once they are upstairs. "Please?"

Renji slumps onto the futon, his expression unreadable. "I'm scared, Seiichi."

"Of us?"

"Of _sex_."

"Oh." Yukimura is totally at a loss. "I didn't mean -- I wasn't asking to go all the way, really, just… further."

"You are a sensualist, Seiichi. No," Renji holds up a hand before Yukimura can object, "you really are. You really enjoy feeling, connecting to the world that way. Touch, taste, scent -- you thrive on as much as you can get; you chase after new stimuli."

"I... is that wrong?"

"Of course not, it's one of the things I like about you. But if I try to immerse myself in sensation the way you do, I panic. I can't let go the way you do. Kissing and touching the way we do is already at about my comfort limit."

Yukimura narrows his eyes, considering that. "This is a control thing, isn't it. Good grief, you don't trust me. Us."

"If you feel that I'm holding you back, I'll understand if you'd want to continue your involvement with Genichirou alone."

"Oh, come on, Renji, I'm not _breaking up_ with you."

"Well, what do you suggest? Clearly I'm frustrating you with my reticence."

Yukimura is rapidly losing patience. "I just wanted an explanation. Stop trying to be a martyr about this, okay? When Genichirou gets here, we'll all talk. But it should be all of us."

When Sanada arrives about half an hour later, it is to find Yukimura and Renji both rather muted. They're not quite sulking at each other, but there's definite tension, and Sanada receives a brief kiss from each of them before they lapse back into non-communicativeness.

"Alright, what's going on?"

"Nothing," says Renji. "Come on, sit down on the futon here with me."

Sanada complies, and gives Yukimura -- who is perched on the windowsill -- a puzzled look. Yukimura shrugs. Renji catches Sanada's jaw in his hand, and begins to kiss him deeply, as if trying to prove a point. Sanada's eyes slide closed, and then snap open again suddenly as Renji begins to unbutton Sanada's pants.

"Uh, wow," he manages between kisses, and Renji transfers his attention to Sanada's neck determinedly.

"Renji, don't," says Yukimura. "Please."

"What?" says Sanada, baffled, pushing Renji away for a moment. "Seriously, what is going on?"

"Apparently we should all have sex this evening," Renji says matter-of-factly, pulling at Sanada's waistband. "Or maybe just you two should. I'm not sure which Seiichi would prefer at this point."

Sanada looks utterly baffled, catches Renji's hands in his own and stares at Yukimura beseechingly.

"He thinks we're going to dump him if he doesn't start putting out. Which we're not, _obviously_."

Sanada takes a deep breath, releases Renji's hands, and pinches the bridge of his nose for a moment. "Right," he says, and buttons his trousers back up. "Start again from the beginning of this argument."

"Seiichi was objecting to the slow pace of our sexual exploration."

"I was asking, not objecting."

"And I explained."

Yukimura sighs. "Apparently he doesn't trust us enough to tell us that he's freaking out. Or to believe we would still want him even if he does."

Sanada makes a shushing gesture at Yukimura, and takes Renji's hands in his. "Right, okay, hang on. Is what we've been doing -- is that not okay with you?"

"It's wonderful. But I'm not sure I can handle more. Not yet, anyway."

"Then we won't do any more."

"I _told_ him that. I don't want him to do anything he's not comfortable with." Yukimura sighed. "I just _asked_."

"I'm fine with you two experimenting further without me, I told you that. I've no urge to hold you back."

Sanada scowls. "Don't be ridiculous. All three of us together no matter what, wasn't that the deal?"

Oh. Yukimura'd rather forgotten that particular agreement, but Sanada's right: everything happens together. Including frustration, it seems. He nods and then takes a seat on the futon next to Renji. "Honestly? I'm disappointed you don't want more, yes. But that's just a selfish reflex. You're a lot more important."

Renji leans against him, still holding Sanada's hands. "I was hoping to desensitise myself slowly; if I get used to what we have now then maybe it won't feel like it's about to be too much. But I can't promise anything."

"We'll go at your pace. If it's still a problem after a while, we'll discuss -- I dunno, therapy, or something." Yukimura winces at his own words. "Not that you're… you know what I mean."

Sanada looks thoughtful. "Can I ask -- is the issue _us_ , specifically?"

Renji shakes his head. "I'd be as bad with anyone -- well, perhaps it'd be less overwhelming with a single partner. But I trust you both. I want you both. I want that life you said you saw; all of us living together."

"As friends, though? Or as lovers?"

Renji laughs, and it's such a relief to hear it that Yukimura smiles instinctively in response, though he's terrified what Renji might say.

"Definitely as lovers," he says, and Yukimura can _feel_ the relief surging through him. "I can't believe how happy I am when I kiss either of you. I definitely have desire for you both, it's just about..."

"Control, right," says Yukimura. He flops backwards onto the futon. "Well, if you could not make me feel guilty for wishing we had the same level of control, that'd be great."

Renji gives him a fond look, and then Yukimura can see the moment something clicks in Renji's head. He pulls his hand from Sanada's, and leans over Yukimura.

"I... think I have a compromise."

Sanada makes a wary sound. "I'd really prefer you participate rather than spectate, so please don't suggest it."

Yukimura nearly laughs -- the same thought had occurred to him -- but Renji's expression is so focused that he doesn't. Renji places a hand firmly on Yukimura's thigh, and licks his lips.

"I don't think I have a problem with _your_ response to sensation."

Yukimura doesn't quite trust himself to speak; Renji's hand on his thigh is warm and assured and Renji's eyes are firmly fixed on his face. He hears rather than sees Sanada moving, and then feels Sanada sit down next to him on the other side from Renji. Sanada pulls at Yukimura's tie.

"Genichirou?"

"All three of us, together, no matter what."

Renji nods, and he glances down at Yukimura's body as he moves his hand up to tug Yukimura's shirt from his trousers. Between the two of them, they soon have him efficiently stripped of everything but his underwear, and then Renji kisses him and he barely notices Sanada tugging at his briefs.

When he is free to breathe again, he's suddenly very very aware of his nudity, and instinctively moves to cover himself with a laugh. Both Renji and Sanada are still fully-clothed. "This is hardly fair."

There's a pause, and then they both -- finally -- stop staring at him and start pulling off their own clothes. Renji hesitates for a moment and leaves his briefs on; Sanada is soon as bare as Yukimura. They both press themselves up against Yukimura again, and that's wonderful, skin on skin everywhere. He kisses Sanada blindly and feels Renji's hands skating up his thighs again; it's nearly ticklish and makes him curl up onto one side, still kissing Sanada.

Renji presses up against the back of him, and Yukimura is pushed forward into Sanada. He's very aware of how aroused they all are; Renji's clothed erection brushes occasionally against the back of his thigh, and Sanada's is pressed against his leg, and his own is... being tentatively stroked by Renji, and it feels so amazing that he's can't help but make those embarrassing noises that the other two seem to think are adorable. Sanada moves to kiss Renji over Yukimura's shoulder, and his hand slides down to join Renji's, and Yukimura becomes aware that he's just gasping and clutching at Sanada's chest randomly in time with their movements.

He's nearly ashamed at his lack of endurance; it really doesn't take very long for him to spill himself all over their joined hands and Sanada kisses him deeply again just as he starts to climax and Renji whispers something indistinct in his ear and Yukimura is so overwhelmed he nearly bites Sanada's lip.

He lies there on his back afterwards, his pulse echoing in his ears, aware that the other two are waiting for him to speak. He manages to force out a giddy noise, somewhere between a laugh and a sigh, and they both smile -- as if they're relieved -- and then Renji rolls away and fetches a cloth from somewhere and the two of them wipe away the worst of the mess he has made. They resettle on either side of him, and Renji kisses him softly.

"That was a convincing argument, Seiichi," he says, grinning. "You are very beautiful when you're happy."

Yukimura ducks his head under Sanada's chin. "Feel free to make me happy more often in future, both of you."

Sanada snorts. "I think we can manage that, yes."


	13. Yagyuu

The end of year break arrives. Niou and Yagyuu both talk to their parents about how important it is that they spend their the whole holiday together so they can practise tennis, and presumably it's convincing because they get permission to do exactly that. There is a public court that is a mere ten minute bus ride from Niou's house; Yagyuu packs some bags and moves into Niou's room for the duration.

They do in fact spend most of the first two days playing tennis pretty solidly, even if they're spending a section of their nights on rather different exercises; on the third day Yagyuu declares that they need to mix up their training and they manage to persuade Niou's mother to let them camp up in the mountains for a night. The idea of having genuine isolation and therefore privacy is enticing enough to keep them hiking for hours until they find a quiet clearing deep in some woods.

They set up their tent, and then sit outside by the fire as Yagyuu tries to cook.

"So," says Niou quietly. "All alone under starlight. Are we supposed to get all gushy and romantic now?"

Yagyuu looks up. There are not, in fact, many stars visible; the fire is too bright, and even if it weren't, the great metropolitan glow of Japan's vast cities would likely make it hard to see many. But it's a pleasant, quiet spot, and they have soft flickering light from the fire; it's pretty romantic, he supposes.

"I'm not sure we're good at romance, Niou-kun," he says.

Niou gives him a wry grin. "No? I think I could probably come up with some lines."

"I'd rather only hear them if you mean them." Yagyuu pokes at their pot; he's concocted some sort of soup with rice in and hopefully it won't kill them. "Do you need to reassure me of your feelings? Or to be reassured about mine?"

Niou leans back, and makes a thoughtful noise. "Actually, maybe I do a little."

"Really?" Yagyuu glances at Niou; he does actually look serious. "Which?"

"Um. I'm sticking around, is all. I'm not going to plan my life in a way that means I'm hundreds of miles away from you when we're studying, for a start."

"Yes, I'd realised that." Yagyuu checks to see if the rice is cooked; close enough, he thinks. He pours out the soup, and hands a bowl to Niou. "I assumed we'd be living together at university, if possible."

"Great minds think alike." Niou takes a gulp, then smirks at Yagyuu. "Besides, you cook better than I do, and you wouldn't want me to waste away in your absence, right?"

"True. You're already bony enough to leave bruises on me."

Niou sticks his tongue out. "You said you liked me fine as I was."

"Fishing for compliments? For shame." Yagyuu stares into his bowl. "You said you didn't mind me not knowing how to describe my feelings."

"Yeah, I know, and I don't either. But it's good to know that we're on the same page, that's all."

They finish their soup, and Niou drifts off to wash the bowls while Yagyuu stamps out the fire; it's not cold enough to need to keep it going. He fixes a torch outside the tent so Niou can find his way back, and then arranges the sleeping bags for maximum shared space.

They don't sleep until some time later; afterwards, Niou sprawls across Yagyuu, his head pillowed on Yagyuu's chest, and starts snoring gently. Yagyuu looks at him and thinks that it's absurd that he isn't annoyed by Niou's snoring; it's even sappier that -- right now -- he thinks it's sort of cute. He brushes Niou's hair out of his face and thinks about all the things neither of them seem willing to say out loud.

They hike back to their arranged meeting place the next day; Niou's mother picks them up and is duly impressed by how far they walked. She tells them that she and Niou's father and brother are going away the next day and staying away overnight; Niou's sister will be there so they can stay at the house if they like, but perhaps they might want to stay at Yagyuu-kun's house instead?

They pretend to think about it for a while, and then _reluctantly_ say that they should probably stay where they are to avoid the hassle of travelling and losing so much tennis practise time. Niou's mother smiles and tells them that they can order delivery food if they don't want to cook. Niou's sister will be in charge of supervising them.

Back at Niou's house, his sister grins conspiratorially when questioned. If Niou won't tell their parents that she's going to spend the night over at her boyfriend's house, she won't tell their parents that she's leaving the boys alone in the house.

"But... no wild parties. No binge drinking. No dangerous drugs. Don't watch too much porn. And don't forget to delete the browser history on your computer if you do," she says, winking.

Niou manages to look faintly embarrassed. "Hey, I'm not a kid, I know how to cover my tracks, sis."

"Glad to hear it. And make sure you guys eat something healthy, I'll never hear the end of it otherwise."

The next day cannot arrive fast enough, in Yagyuu's opinion. The three of them dutifully file outside and wave Niou's parents off in the early morning. His sister hangs around for the next hour impatiently so she can answer the home phone when it rings; another predictable routine from her parents. She assures them everything is fine, there are no fires -- Yagyuu raises an eyebrow at Niou, who mouths 'just once' -- and says she'll call them later on.

She hangs up, grabs her bag from by the door, says, "right, that's it, I'll use my cell later. Don't have any disasters in my absence, 'kay?" and is gone.

Niou closes the door behind her, locks it, and grins. "Well, well. All alone."

Yagyuu nods. "So, is this where we start all the parties and fires?"

"I was thinking of skipping straight to the debauchery, but hey, I can find the matches if you insist on foreplay..."

"Upstairs, then?"

"Right. Neighbours'll get curious if we close the curtains down here in daytime. Besides, I have plans."

Yagyuu nods, as Niou leads the way back to his bedroom. "Naked plans, if I recall your vague assertions a while ago."

"Believe me, you're going to like this. Or, I hope you are." Niou closes and locks the door -- out of habit, Yagyuu assumes -- and then closes his curtains firmly. "Sit down."

He does, intrigued. Niou pulls open the bottom drawer of his bedside chest; under some tennis magazines it turns out to contain hand lotion and a girly magazine. Yagyuu blinks at quite how blatant a pairing that is, and then picks up the magazine and flicks through it in disbelief; the girls in it aren't even naked. It's all bikini-clad schoolgirls frolicking demurely on the beach.

"This is surprisingly wholesome, Niou-kun."

"Hey, it's a prop, that's all. You think I want my brother - or worse, my mother - to see what I really get off to?"

"This might be a little bit too implausible. She'll realise it's a misdirection." Or, Yagyuu admits to himself, she'll think Niou has fantasies about corrupting innocent young girls like these. Maybe he does. Yagyuu wouldn't be very surprised.

"Hm, good point. Maybe I should upgrade a little." Niou pulls the drawer out entirely; there's a generous gap between it and the floor below, usually hidden by the structure of the chest. "Just so you know, I'm trusting you not to go rummaging around too much in here."

Yagyuu laughs. "If you think I'm going to believe you've left anything in there you don't mind me seeing, you've forgotten how long I've known you. You have other stashes."

"Ha, maybe. Gimme a sec here." Niou pulls out more magazines and tosses them to the side as he digs around in the bottom of the space; Yagyuu's faintly relieved to see that these particular ones are much more what he'd expect Niou to actually want to see in porn -- the women are a lot more naked and a lot less naive-looking, for a start. He can't help but notice that one magazine seems to contain nothing but men with other men, and he wonders if Niou planted that just to see his reaction or if he was genuinely curious.

"Right," says Niou, and he has produced what Yagyuu had been half-expecting: condoms and a tube of what is presumably lubricant. He places them on the top of the chest, tosses the magazines haphazardly back inside the space, and slides the drawer back in. He hauls himself back onto the bed, sprawls out and gives Yagyuu an expectant look.

"Hmm," says Yagyuu. "How long have you been planning this?"

"Weeks," says Niou, grinning. "I've been researching. I, uh, tried doing some tests on how it works when I started thinking about this."

Yagyuu twitches at that, his mind suddenly bringing up _very_ interesting images.

"So, yeah, I mean, I'm not talking about me doing this to you. Or, you know, the first time, I'm not, anyway. We should try it both ways though."

"Masaharu," Yagyuu finds himself saying, before Niou can start another tangent. "Be really, really clear, I beg you. What are you actually suggesting we do?"

"Sex. I want you to have sex with me." Niou looks rather crestfallen at having to explain. "Unless you don't want to?"

Yagyuu stares at him in disbelief. "Right now I'm just trying not to hyperventilate at the image of you experimenting on yourself."

Niou props himself up on his elbows, and smirks. "Oh, yeah? I can show you if that'll get you going. Should take it slowly the first time, and all."

Yagyuu kisses him. "Educate me."

Niou does exactly that; Yagyuu has read up a bit on how this is done -- it seemed prudent -- so it's not as shocking as it might once have been. He is surprised that pushing his fingers into Niou doesn't feel dirtier, though. He adds more lube -- it seems like a good idea to be extra-cautious -- until Niou starts stifling laughter at the noises it makes.

"You're being a bit too careful, y'know, not that it doesn't feel good," he says, though Yagyuu can scarcely believe Niou means it. "Honestly, I think I'm ready."

Yagyuu removes his fingers -- they squelch again, and Niou sniggers into the pillow -- and he fumbles with the condom packet until Niou actually turns over, takes it out of his hands, and rips it open for him. Yagyuu takes the condom out, and stares at it for a moment. Theory's one thing, but he's never done this before (and now he's wondering why he's never thought to practise this part at least, in the safety and privacy of his own room) and his arousal -- already somewhat dulled from his nervousness -- is ebbing further at the prospect of trying to put the condom on without looking like an idiot.

"...shit, you're really nervous. I've never seen you this shaky. You wanna stop?"

"No, I really don't." He shakes his head vehemently. "Sorry, just... I keep thinking I'm going to fuck this up horribly."

Niou plucks the condom from him, and kisses him with surprising gentleness. "If you do, who cares? This really isn't that big a deal, you know. I'll tell you to stop if it hurts, honest, and everything else is just -- well, we're way past getting embarrassed now, right?" 

It takes a little bit of coaxing, but between the two of them they manage to roll the condom into place securely. It feels really strange, and looks even stranger.

"Right," Niou sprawls out on his back, and smiles up at Yagyuu invitingly. "I'm all yours."

"So how... I mean, what position?"

"I... uh, I dunno. Maybe if we can, like this? Or I can lie on my front, I guess."

Yagyuu climbs onto Niou and kisses him. "Let's try this first. Hook your legs around me?"

It takes a few attempts for them to work out the right angle, but there's less resistance than Yagyuu expected once they do. Niou was probably right that he didn't need quite so much preparation, but it's worth it just for the flicker of relief Niou doesn't manage to hide. Yagyuu suspects Niou was actually expecting it to be painful and wasn't planning on telling Yagyuu if it was. As a result, for about a second, he actually wishes it _was_ hurting Niou, and then Niou's face goes kind of strange and tense. 

"Whew, wait, wait, hang on."

Yagyuu freezes, worried that he has, despite his best efforts, actually managed to do something horrible to Niou, all thoughts of _he'd deserve it_ banished. "You okay?"

"No, no, it's not bad or anything. It just feels really really weird. Give me a second to get used to it."

Now Yagyuu's stopped, he can feel little spasming ripples inside Niou, like there was around his fingers earlier only more so -- never quite tight enough to be painful, and then he blinks as it really hits him: he's _having sex_. With Niou. Everything swims, suddenly -- he's been focusing so hard on being cautious that the awareness hadn't sunk in, but now he's really having to fight the urge to just thrust and thrust and thrust.

"Heh, I can feel you twitching. It feels really... full. Just... huh. Okay, keep going."

Yagyuu does -- maintaining some kind of control feels easier once he's fully inside Niou, paradoxically; he releases the breath he's been holding for a while. 

"Oh, you have no idea how good this feels."

"Yeah?" Niou shifts a little under him, looking smug. "Then show me."

He pulls out a little, carefully, and then begins to thrust -- as slowly as he can stand -- in and out, clutching at Niou's hips as an anchor. The feeling of _friction_ is amazing; it's far more than he expected. Niou's face goes from smugness to... surprise? And then he looks like he's caught between blissfulness and disbelief, and then Yagyuu can't keep his eyes on Niou's face because seeing Niou look like that as well as feeling him squeezing around his cock is just too much. Niou's little gasps and moans are already bad enough; it's making him speed up even though he's trying his best not to. 

He risks a glance down between them; he can see himself sliding in and out of Niou, and each thrust just adds to the mounting sense of fierce, wild pleasure. He can also see Niou's hard cock bobbing at the top of his line of vision, and that sends another violent pulse of arousal through him, and he moans and shuts his eyes. There's no way he can last long at this rate, and Niou's going to tease him _forever_.

"Fuck," he hears Niou say, through the rushing sound in his ears, " _you_ have no idea. My... touch me, _please_ , fuck."

He reaches blindly for Niou's cock, and tries to match his thrusting and the movement of his hand but he knows it's really wild and un-coordinated. Thankfully that doesn't seem to matter; Niou cries out and begins to spurt all over his hand pretty quickly. The noise and the sensation of warm wetness flooding his hand combines with everything else and sends Yagyuu completely over the edge of his self-control. He thrusts frantically until everything becomes a single surge of pleasure, and he knows he's being pretty loud when he comes but it is all far too good not to exult in.

Niou has the presence of mind to grab him and make sure he pulls out with the condom still in place; he peels it off and wraps it in tissues before collapsing next to Niou, who is lying on his back looking blissful.

"I think that was a solid success," Niou says after they both catch their breath. "Shit, though, I thought people were exaggerating."

Yagyuu laughs into the sheets. "So did I."

Niou grabs some tissues, and begins to clean himself up. "Ew, though, at least your mess was kind of contained. I feel like I'm leaking everywhere."

"Oh." Yagyuu glances down the bed; there's definitely a spreading damp patch. "You are, sorry. Next time, you're right, less lubricant."

"Hey, it was absolutely worth it. These sheets can go in the wash before my parents get home." Niou scrubs at himself, and then discards the tissues with a grimace. "Actually I think I need a shower. And maybe some caffeine. And then later, we're going to try that again the other way around."

He'd have been really dubious before seeing Niou's reaction but now... well, he's very willing to try. Yagyuu rolls over and smiles. "Yes, we are."

Niou looks ridiculously pleased with himself, but Yagyuu thinks he can forgive that. Right now he thinks he'd forgive Niou for just about anything.

"Plan: you go make coffee. I'll be down in a bit."

"Hey, I want a shower too."

"Yeah, this one I want to have on my own -- you can have yours afterwards. Or we'll get too distracted."

Yagyuu sighs, gets dressed, and goes downstairs to make coffee as instructed. His pants feel vaguely sticky against his groin, and he's thrown on one of Niou's garish old t-shirts -- he's really not expecting to be dressed for very long. Besides, he's just _had sex with Niou_ ; that thought keeps making him space out, and only when he hears Niou leave the bathroom upstairs does he manage to focus his attention enough to actually boil the water. When the doorbell chimes, he's startled; he is not in a presentable state to deal with visitors.

He reluctantly goes to open the door in case it's something important; to his surprise, Yukimura is on Niou's doorstep.

Yukimura takes one look at him and covers his mouth in amusement. "Sorry, are you Yagyuu or Niou?"

"No, it's me, please forgive my appearance," he says, automatically trying to smooth down his hair. "You, er, caught us at an awkward time. Niou-kun is in the shower."

"Ah, my apologies. Niou's sister didn't get a response from Niou so she asked me to drop by; his parents are coming back tomorrow morning, not in the afternoon."

"Thank you. Um, would you like to come in? I was making coffee."

Yukimura beams at him. "Of course I would."

Yagyuu sighs quietly as Yukimura bustles past him. Niou has come downstairs, clad in pyjamas, his hair still wet enough to drip slightly.

"Who was... oh. Yukimura-fukubuchou, you... why are you here?"

"He's brought a message from your sister. Your parents are getting home earlier than expected -- still tomorrow, though." Yagyuu digs out another cup for Yukimura, somewhat resentfully.

"And then Yagyuu here invited me in for coffee. Even though he's dying to go fuss with his hair and change his delightful shirt as a result."

Yagyuu fights down the urge to look down.

"Yagyuu here is too polite for his own good, really. Not that it's not good to see you, you know, it's just..."

Yukimura laughs. "You had other plans. I understand; I would have declined but actually I wanted a word with you both."

Niou raises an eyebrow. "Is this tennis-related?"

"It is. Team selection is by ranking match this year. The matches will be quite soon after term starts, I think. We're planning a coup to eject our sempais."

"Splendid. Count us in."

"Oh, we are. You two especially; our dear captain is a doubles player himself so I will need you two to be on top form. Yagyuu, I'm rather hoping he'll underestimate you as you weren't around last year. I hope you're in good shape."

Yagyuu pours the coffee. "We've been training together a lot this holiday."

Yukimura smiles sunnily. "And you don't even mean that as a euphemism. Good, good. I noticed you two were practising your switch in class at the end of term."

"What?" Niou sounds offended. "I didn't get close enough for you to see my face properly. What gave it away?"

"Unless you pad it, Niou, your rear end is never going to be the same shape as Yagyuu's. It's easy to spot your switch if you check that first."

Niou looks slightly horrified, as Yagyuu smothers a smile. "Alright, forget I asked."

"How do you think Renji's always been able to tell?" Yukimura gives them that serene smile again, and sips his coffee. "Council of war meetings begin next term, Sanada's house after class ends on the second day. Don't be late."

Yagyuu nods. "We'll be there."

"Oh, and," Yukimura holds up a key, " _this_ is a key to the indoor courts at Rikkai. For practising tennis only. Don't do anything there that it would traumatise the rest of the team to hear about."

The key is snatched from his hand by Niou. "Awesome, I wanted to ask about getting one of these."

"I'll get a separate one for you later, Yagyuu. I can't really hand out too many copies right now, but Niou was a regular last year."

"Can't we just get this one copied?"

Yukimura blinks. "I... suppose you could. But officially I didn't hear you ask that."

They nod, and Niou grins before making the key vanish from his hand smoothly. "Of course not."

"Right." Yukimura stands, and winks at them. "I'll leave you two to your diversions."

He lets himself out, smirking all the way, as Niou grins at Yagyuu.

"God, you look such a mess right now."

"Thanks. Just how I wanted to be seen by my classmate and captain."

"Hey, he didn't take a picture, be glad of that." Niou picks up his phone. "I'm gonna call my sister, tell her we got the message."

Yagyuu sighs and goes to have a long, very _thorough_ shower.

He emerges a while later, in clean clothing, feeling much better. He's even sort of amused; Yukimura knew they were dating, now he can probably take a good guess that they're sleeping together. It's clearly not something he's going to condemn them for. And his visit was positive: they have access to the courts to practise on.

Niou is lying on the bed, his hair now dried but unstyled, looking thoughtful.

"Hey," he says, sitting down next to him.

"Hey, you. Sis says she'll get back tomorrow at like 9 or 10am, so we still have the whole night."

Yagyuu nods, and pokes at Niou's hair. "No spikes?"

"The wax was in there with you, and I didn't feel like interrupting. Why, how bad does it look?"

Yagyuu blinks, and draws back to assess. It's odd. Niou's face looks softer with his hair down like this, even with his rat-tail out of the way; it's not quite the same as when he's wearing his Yagyuu wig, because that doesn't frame his face the same way.

"I think if your ex-girlfriend had seen you like this, you'd never have shaken her. You look sort of like that elder Fuji boy."

Niou laughs, closes his eyes and tips his head to one side in obvious mimicry. "I'll bear that in mind if I want to add him to my illusions."

"Please don't."

Niou goes to fix his hair, and Yagyuu thinks for a moment. It's probably about lunchtime, but he's not very hungry; he's too busy trying to still the buzz of anticipation in his stomach. He hopes Niou isn't joking about how good it felt from his side of things; Niou's surprisingly tolerant of many things but Yagyuu suspects there'd be a lot of griping if they didn't take turns at who gets to top.

By the time Niou returns, Yagyuu is achingly hard from a combination of speculation and memories of their earlier trial. He pulls Niou down onto the bed, kissing him fiercely, glad that Niou immediately responds with delight and enthusiasm. It doesn't take long for them to get naked again, and Niou bites on Yagyuu's earlobe and laughs as Yagyuu writhes underneath him.

"So," he says, straddling Yagyuu in a way which temporarily pins Yagyuu's arms next to his sides. "Are we, um, switching around from earlier? Or do you just want to fool around for now?"

"Oh, I want to try it, definitely," says Yagyuu, freeing one arm and hauling Niou down next to him. "Now."

Niou nods, and pokes Yagyuu gently in the side. "Turn over, then?"

Yagyuu turns onto his front, and hears Niou squeeze out lubricant onto his hand.

"Okay, this is going to be really cold, sorry. It'll get warm soon enough though."

Niou's wet fingers probe at Yagyuu's rear, and he spreads his legs a little. Niou wasn't kidding; it does feel cold, and it also feels really strange -- nearly ticklish -- when Niou's fingers touch him there.

He winces at the first push, and turns his head to look at Niou. Niou has arranged himself so he's lying along Yagyuu's side, propped up on one elbow; Yagyuu can see the concentration on his face as he works his finger inside.

He's seen Niou's hands a million times. He'd always thought Niou had sort of skinny fingers. It doesn't feel like they're that skinny right now.

"So," says Niou conversationally, "the first couple of times, it took me ages to do this to myself. But it got easier. I kind of get the impression some guys barely need to prepare; they just relax and lube and it's all good to go."

"Oh," manages Yagyuu. "It... it feels really strange."

Niou stops. "Tell me if it hurts, okay. I know what I did to myself but, well, it's not the same. And, um, relax a bit? You're making it harder for both of us when you tense up."

Yagyuu forces himself to breathe in and out. "Keep going. It's not painful, just..."

"Weird, I know." Yagyuu hears more lube, and then the fingers are probing again, cold and wet. "Is it better if I talk or not?"

It's not a decision Yagyuu really can mull over, in the circumstances. "Talk to me."

"'Kay, um." Yagyuu wonders how Niou ever felt relaxed about doing this to himself; it just feels _invasive_ to him. "So, the thing is, once you're okay with this, there's the prostate. Couldn't find mine, but I think it's because I couldn't get my fingers at the right angle."

"Ah," manages Yagyuu, trying not to tense up at the new intrusion. Niou has.. two? fingers in him now, he's pretty sure, and that's definitely progress.

"If I can find yours, apparently it's like insta-orgasm. But that could be just people exaggerating. Still worth a try, though."

The fingers are removed, and Yagyuu hears more lube once again.

"Even if I don't though, trust me, this still feels awesome once you get going."

Yagyuu takes another deep breath, trying to will himself to relax, and Niou pauses.

"You want a break?"

"Please."

Niou curls himself around Yagyuu, carefully holding his lubed hand away from Yagyuu's skin. "Should I not talk? I feel like I'm making you twitchier."

"Mm. I have a better plan." Yagyuu stretches, and then turns to kiss Niou. The kiss lasts quite a while; Yagyuu grabs Niou's arm and pulls his hand back towards where it was; Niou gets the idea and begins to work his fingers into Yagyuu while they're kissing.

It feels a lot better this time; the kissing distracts him from how alien the sensation is. After a while it actually feels... really good, like Niou said, and arousing in itself; it's not like having his cock touched but it's definitely provoking the same family of sensations -- it feels like little sparks are being sent to his balls with each thrust.

Niou comes up for air. "I, um, think I need a different angle if you want me to, um, search."

"Another time," Yagyuu says breathlessly. Niou's fingers are pumping in and out of him rather regularly now; it's making it hard to form words. "Sex now?"

Niou grins wolfishly. "How?"

Yagyuu rolls onto his front. "Like this."

Niou pulls his fingers out of Yagyuu entirely, and Yagyuu winces at the sudden emptiness. He can hear the condom packet tear, and then there's a few noises he can't quite follow. After a pause he feels Niou's hands sort of splaying him open. He lifts his hips up, and feels Niou pushing slowly into him -- he feels like he's being overfilled, but it's definitely in a good way.

"Ah, fuck, fuck," chants Niou, sounding dazed. "That's.. yeah."

It feels good to Yagyuu too, but he's not sure he can remember how to speak right now. He pushes back and up, when Niou seems unwilling to push in deep enough, and Niou groans in a way that makes Yagyuu's groin throb in sympathy. He drags himself forward again; Niou actually whimpers as he is pulled out.

"In," manages Yagyuu. "Please."

Niou starts to move, hesitantly, and Yagyuu feels a grunt being forced out of himself at the deepest point of each thrust. He rises up to meet each slow push; it's not enough, not yet. Niou's being too cautious, damn him.

"Faster," he pleads, feeling like it takes all the air in his lungs to form the word. Niou makes a strangled noise and obliges, speeding up and also thrusting harder in a way that makes Yagyuu feel like he's skittering closer to orgasm with each motion.

"Really close already, sorry, augh," Niou warns all too soon, his breath hot on Yagyuu's neck. "You... should come, too."

Yagyuu gulps down air, manages to lift himself up slightly, and works his hand underneath himself. He lets Niou's thrusts push his cock into his hand; Niou is making really odd noises behind him which probably means he's frantically trying not to come. It's a desperately thrilling thought, and then everything surges all at once and then Yagyuu's curling his toes and spurting all over the sheets while Niou makes this amazing noise of release and the rhythm of his thrusts stutters to a halt.

Niou sort of collapses onto Yagyuu's back, breathing heavily. Yagyuu is aware that his own come is being smeared all over his thigh and stomach but he really couldn't care less what with the euphoria. The world is a perfect place, just for a moment.

Niou shifts after a moment, and then is sliding out of him -- and that feels really odd, suddenly being empty again -- and rolling away.

There's a pause -- Yagyuu can only assume Niou is cleaning himself up -- and then the bed moves again as Niou lies back down next to him. He feels his shoulder being kissed gently, and makes a vague noise that's meant to express his contentment.

"I'm confused," says Niou, after a moment. "Why do people ever get out of bed when sex feels like this?"

Yagyuu chuckles, and rolls over, then makes a face at the absolutely disgusting mess he's made of himself and the bed. "Augh. That might be why."

"Good thing I'm washing these sheets, huh." Niou grabs at his box of tissues again, and starts dabbing at Yagyuu's stomach. "You're going to want another shower."

Yagyuu nods, amused at Niou's ministrations. "I, uh, definitely see what you mean, though."

Niou grins. "Yeah? I figured you would." He kisses Yagyuu again, and it feels relaxed and lazy and perfect. "It's messy, but I think I'll be wanting to do it again. Either way."

"I'm willing, believe me."

Niou throws the tissues onto the floor, and then glances down where he'd thrown them. "Ah, how about you take a shower and I clean up in here? It's a bit gross right now."

Yagyuu obeys, and by the time he's gotten back, Niou's ditched all the tissues and even changed the sheets. The room still smells mustily like sex, though, and Yagyuu opens the curtains and slides the window open.

"Right," says Niou, re-entering, looking somewhat fresher himself. "Food. There's rice and miso and stuff, but I think I want actual food. We have menus, or I guess we could actually go out and get something?"

Yagyuu stretches; he's a little sore, but not nearly as much as he'd have anticipated. "I'm feeling lazy."

They go downstairs and order food; Yagyuu does insist on there being a sincere attempt to include vegetables in the meal. Niou says he's pinning the receipt to the refrigerator as proof for his mother.

They eat on the floor in the living room; Niou leans against Yagyuu's side and steals the food from his plate.

"We have the exact same food, Niou-kun."

"And yours tastes better." Niou pops a chunk of tofu into his mouth, and grins. "If you minded that much, you'd have stopped me years ago, you know that."

Yagyuu sighs, and eats from Niou's plate instead.

Afterwards, Niou closes the curtains -- "screw 'em," he says of the neighbours, when Yagyuu raises an eyebrow -- and then sits next to Yagyuu again on the floor.

"Well, Niou-kun, what next?" Yagyuu puts his arm around Niou, and to his delight Niou closes his eyes and leans back, his head resting on Yagyuu's shoulder.

"Not sure. Post-food coma?"

"I doubt you ate enough for that."

"Belated post-coital coma?"

"Hm, maybe." Yagyuu kisses Niou on the side of the head. "Any plans that involve being conscious?"

"Only after not being?" Niou yawns, and turns so he's lying against Yagyuu. He opens one eye suspiciously. "Why are you so awake, anyway? Did I not sex you enough?"

Yagyuu laughs. "I'm fine; I'm great, in fact. Just not sleepy yet."

"Or is this supposed to be romantic chitchat time? I can't keep track."

"Shh, go to sleep, if you're actually tired."

"Mmmf. You gonna be okay? I can move if you wanna get a book or something. But you're a good pillow, so come back."

"Hush." He pats Niou's head. "I'm fine."

Niou nods, closes his eyes, and is soon genuinely asleep against him. Yagyuu makes himself as comfortable as he can without disturbing Niou; he really does want to just think for a while, and this will do.

It's been one hell of a day, really. He's had _sex_. _Twice_. With _Niou_. He turns that thought over in his head and it doesn't get any less huge. He'd thought sucking Niou off and enjoying it was fairly much a confirmation of deviancy; this is even more so. Nothing about being with Niou sexually has put him off yet. It's a relief, but even now it's making some peripheral parts of his self-identity need reassessing.

He can't help it: he keeps wondering how long-term this relationship is, how invested Niou really is, how long it's going to last. They've already talked about university; Niou wants them to live together, that's perfect as far as Yagyuu is concerned -- he knows Niou is going to be a pain to live with, but he'll drive Niou just as crazy in return. So they'll work it out. Maybe by that point they'll be used enough to sex to actually be willing to get out of bed and go to their classes occasionally. After that... well, he's still planning on being a doctor, and Niou's plans mostly sound like he wants to do something with computers or finance. They can do those things basically anywhere; he can follow Niou or Niou can follow him, whichever is necessary. Which means they can be together pretty much indefinitely.

That sounds like a good plan.

It's inevitable that their families will end up knowing the truth, eventually. Niou's family... well, he can't see them being delighted, precisely. Yagyuu's family might just pretend they didn't know, actually, as long as Yagyuu's life looked outwardly respectable. Niou being Niou, however, a respectable-looking life together is not going to be an option -- and Yagyuu thinks that, on the whole, he wouldn't want to pretend forever anyway. So his family will find out one day, and hopefully by that point Yagyuu will be a full adult with his own income. If it comes earlier... well. They're both inventive and adaptable; they can find ways to support themselves. He hopes.

Niou shifts against him, and makes a murmuring noise. Yagyuu pulls him close; his train of thought is making him feel rather protective.

He drifts off into a half-doze of vaguely ominous thoughts. Over in the kitchen, his cellphone rings loudly, and vibrates against the counter for good measure. Niou wakes, startled.

"Wzz?"

"Sorry, Niou-kun." Yagyuu gives Niou a gentle shove. "I really should get that."

Niou droops bonelessly to one side. "Mmm."

Yagyuu crawls out from under Niou -- for someone who eats so little, he can weigh a ton when he chooses -- and just manages to get to his phone while it's still ringing. It's his mother.

She just wants to check up on him; he assures her he's fine and that Niou's sister is keeping an eye on them. He wonders why mothers all seem to assume their sons will eat nothing but junk if left unmonitored for a meal. Then he looks over at Niou, and realises that Niou _would_.

After she hangs up, he goes over and prods Niou with a toe.

"Mmm," says Niou. "'m awake. Whatcha wanna do?"

Yagyuu kneels down. "Up to you. I'm feeling benevolent; I'll even let you make me play something horrific on the console."

Niou smiles crookedly. "Ooh. But I was gonna drag you to the arcade this week anyway."

"Maybe we should save my tolerance for mindless violence for that occasion."

"Yeah, good call. We could see if there's something on TV, I guess."

Niou still looks dishevelled and relaxed from his nap, and it's a very good look on him. Yagyuu puts out a hand and strokes the side of Niou's face gently. Niou's expression melts from idle thought to something rather more focused.

"Or we could go back upstairs and argue over who gets to do what this time?"

"No arguments; whichever you want."

He's helping Niou get up, and Niou gives Yagyuu a weird look at that comment. "You okay? You're being... I dunno."

"Sappy?" Yagyuu offers. "Probably. I was thinking about the future while you were napping."

"Huh." Niou holds out a hand and starts towing Yagyuu upstairs behind him. "Interesting. Tell me?"

"Just working out how to keep you as a part of mine for as long as possible."

Niou stops absolutely still, so suddenly that Yagyuu actually bumps into him. "Oh."

"Huh?" Yagyuu wonders if he's said something wrong.

Niou turns, and kisses him. "Nothing, it's just funny. Sex makes you sappy, huh?" He wraps an arm around Yagyuu's shoulders, and pulls him close. "I'm not going anywhere, Yagyuu. You're mine now. No escape."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (I couldn't find a good place to split this, so, uh, have a long chapter!)


	14. Yukimura

Yukimura is not sure how he feels about everything, right now.

It's not that he actually minded Niou's sister calling him when her brother didn't answer his phone; he's a little surprised that she has his number, admittedly, but it's rather flattering that she thought he was reliable and trustworthy enough to send over. And he genuinely thinks it's funny that he'd clearly interrupted Yagyuu and Niou in the middle of rather an active day; he'd never expected to associate Yagyuu with the words 'well-shagged', but that was definitely the phrase that sprang to mind on seeing him.

It's only afterwards that he wonders if Yagyuu and Niou are actually _aware_ of the ridiculous risks they're taking. Yukimura was already aware of their involvement, but it wouldn't have been hard to put the pieces together if he hadn't been. Admittedly he doubted Yagyuu would have actually let anyone else inside, but it really wouldn't have been hard for a neighbour to have dropped by and made suspicious. Or for Niou's sister to have called someone else; Marui, say.

He wonders if Niou's sister suspects that her brother is actually _involved_ with Yagyuu. She'd been insistent that he go warn them that they'd have less time than expected. If she does know, presumably she's on their side. On the other hand, it's entirely possible she just guessed there'd be _something_ going on that Niou wouldn't want his parents to catch him at; this _is_ Niou, after all.

He resolves to just keep an eye on the two of them; if they seem too obvious, he'll warn them.

The next day it transpires that Renji's parents, once again, have gone out; Renji's sister tells them that she is going to be in her room, playing some online game all evening.

"No date tonight?" asks Renji, apparently surprised.

"This is a date too," she says, "so I'll be here. But try not to need me."

Renji, in the living room, says that it's very much as if she wasn't there. Sanada looks a bit dubious, and by unspoken agreement they retreat to Renji's room and pull out schoolwork. Yukimura starts drawing up some ranking match sheets; he needs to see if this plan of theirs can get by the captain unnoticed.

Sanada and Renji talk quietly for a bit in voices that are pitched too low for Yukimura to catch much of, and then they fall silent. He looks up after a while; they're both watching him.

"Hmm?"

Renji laughs. "Five minutes. Pay up, Genichirou."

Sanada sighs, and hands Renji a coin. "Yeah, yeah."

At Yukimura's expression, Renji smiles. "You were absorbed; we wondered how long it would take you to spare us a moment."

Yukimura glances back down. "You could just interrupt me."

"That wouldn't prove my data correct, would it?"

He shuffles the papers. "You could help with the ranking match setups. I'm struggling a little to balance everything. Be useful, _data master_."

Sanada chuckles. "A command from the Child of God. Where did we get such absurd titles?"

"We were twelve, Genichirou. I'm lucky you didn't label me something equally as dramatic," says Renji, plucking the papers from Yukimura's hands.

"I suppose that's true. Can we change those nicknames, do you think?"

Yukimura gives him a puzzled look. "What's wrong with yours? I chose that one."

"Pity you didn't forsee me standing on the court at Nationals, playing against _Atobe_ while the Hyoutei supporters struggled to not use any variant of Emperor in their chants. It was embarrassing."

"I thought it was charming," says Renji. "It threw them wonderfully off-balance. And I did recently think up another title for Seiichi, but he'll hate it more."

"Oh?"

"The Boy who Lived."

Yukimura face-palms in horror.

They hear a repeated thudding beat suddenly start up from Renji's sister's room.

"Ah, she's in that stage of the game; she won't hear anything we do for a few hours now," Renji hands Yukimura back the papers. "Swap Akaya and Genichirou around, to keep the four of us from last year spaced one per block; and put me in the block against our captain instead of Niou. Keep Yagyuu in there, though; he's definitely our best shot to take the captain down unexpectedly."

"Hm, you think? I thought they'd be more inspired if it was both of them or him."

"Keeping their names apart should make Yagyuu look like less of a threat. It's just a thought, really. I think it's probably worth them not having to compete directly straight away, though. Don't want to upset our sweethearts, now, do we?"

"Hmm," says Yukimura, and sets the papers aside. "When I went over there yesterday, well--let's just say that they were taking advantage of having the house to themselves."

Sanada makes a spluttering noise. "Oh, god."

"Seriously, you could smell it. I don't think I actually interrupted them at it, but I've honestly never seen Yagyuu look so embarrassed and so unprepared to deal with people."

Renji laughs. "And yet you hung around to recruit them to the cause? Seiichi, that's cruel."

"Well, it was sort of fun watching him twitch. But I did also want to check they were both, well, actually practising tennis this holiday as well. They are, I think."

"Between all the sex?"

"Evidently. Hopefully it's improving their stamina, at least." Yukimura glances over at Sanada, staring fixedly at the wall as if trying to memorise every detail of it. "Genichirou, just stop picturing them doing it, really. You'll feel better."

"Believe me, I'm trying."

"Anyway. They have a key to the courts, and strict instructions not to abuse it."

Renji smirks. "Excellent. So plan B to oust our captain is for him to catch them humping in the showers and be traumatised into leaving?"

"If I thought that would work, I'd be in there myself with both of you. To hell with dignity."

Sanada lies down and rests his head on Renji's knee. "I can't unsee it in my head now," he says plaintively.

Yukimura laughs, and lies down too, resting his head on Renji's other knee. "Then it's probably just as well Niou's sister doesn't have _your_ phone number."

"About that--should we be concerned about how she got it?" asks Renji, tugging gently on Yukimura's hair. "Who else has your number?"

"Everyone's parents? Most of my class? Half of the tennis circuit?"

"Hmm. That _is_ a concern. Genichirou, be ready to defend our property from marauding tennis invaders, intent on capturing his heart by sweet words over the phone."

" _Property?_ " asks Yukimura, archly.

" _Marauding?_ " asks Sanada. "Are you expecting Yukimura to be kidnapped by someone from Higa?"

Renji grins at them, and pokes both their noses. "Tsh, such contrarians, both of you. I'm so proud."

The captain, back in school, glances over Yukimura's proposed ranking match setups and nods in vague approval; he taps his pen idly against Yagyuu's name in the same cluster as his own, but seems to dismiss whatever thought had occurred to him.

Yukimura heaves an internal sigh of relief; now all he can do is hope that Yagyuu is as good as he used to be in middle school.


	15. Niou

Niou smashes his ball past Marui and just barely scrapes the inside of the baseline. It's the last point he needs to be top of his ranking match layout; Marui pops his gum at him and shoulders his racket, cheerful enough at his defeat.

"That's a dirty little move you've got there."

"Yeah, well, a genius like yourself should learn to defend against it soon enough."

Marui grins at him; they've both beaten the rest of the opponents in their line-up pretty easily. Their ranking square had a few decent opponents, but nobody for them to be particularly worried about. 

The ranking matches have all been scheduled for the same day, either out of sadism or out of masochism -- Niou's not sure which the captain's more guilty of, honestly. Together they head out to peek at the other courts. Kirihara and Yukimura have effortlessly beaten all their opponents already; Yukimura had also rather easily taken his match against Kirihara, who'd merely sighed and muttered grumpily to himself. Jackal had been the hidden trap in the matchups that the captain's doubles partner was in; his match had been early on and had indeed gone as expected -- his only loss had been to Sanada, who was currently in the middle of efficiently trouncing a third-year defense specialist.

Over on court B, Yanagi and Yagyuu are playing their one-set match; Yagyuu is losing in an extremely long-winded and pre-rigged fashion. Niou wonders, vaguely, what a real match between them would look like. They're really drawing this out -- lots of long, slow rallies, making sure the other can return shots -- and it takes him a moment to catch on why; they're making sure all the other ranking sets have been secured. Then there'll be another match between some of the other pre-regulars, providing them breathing space. Then Yagyuu's final match against the captain will begin. Judging from the tallies on the scoreboards nearby, Yanagi has already won his matchup against the captain. Really, it all comes down to Yagyuu.

Niou can't help but applaud Yukimura's sense of theatre, really.

Sanada appears at the far side of the court, his game complete; Niou can see Yagyuu repress a flicker of awareness in his expression, and then he very carefully allows Yanagi's next return to scrape the edge of his racket. That point lost, Yanagi delivers another serve that Yagyuu makes a convincing effort to look like he's just incapable of reaching and that secures the game for Yanagi. They shake hands across the net, and Yanagi wanders up to his accustomed place next to Yukimura.

Niou watches Yagyuu go sit to one side; the rest of the team have been told not to make it look like they're too invested in his playing. He, on the other hand, is actually supposed to look like he's worried for his best friend, who looks exhausted and faintly disappointed.

Yagyuu sighs when Niou sits next to him; Niou hands over a bottle of water and tries to look like he's commiserating. Yagyuu's forlorn and worn-out pose is pretty decent, he thinks; in actual fact Yagyuu's not even sweating from his game against Yanagi. Niou pats him on the shoulder, and Yagyuu gives him an irritated look over his glasses.

They watch two first-year pre-regulars shunt the ball back and forth; in honesty the kids aren't bad. In fact they're verging on good, quite solid in a number of ways. Niou feels a pang of faint pity for them; these are not welcoming times to be merely a _good_ high school tennis player, and Rikkai is hardly the only school with a surfeit of excellent players hogging all the team places. If any of these pre-regulars have genuine ambitions at professional tennis, they're going to have a hard time catching up.

The game is watchable but uninspiring; at the end the captain waves the kids off the court and then stands there, waiting. Niou gives Yagyuu one last encouraging pat on the shoulder. Yagyuu glares at him again, then trudges down the steps as if expecting to be trounced.

Niou makes his way up to where Yanagi, Yukimura and Sanada have gathered; he can see that Marui, Jackal and Kirihara have formed another knot on the opposing side of the court.

"Ready?" asks Yukimura, looking serene and unconcerned.

He leans on the bar in front of them, watching as Yagyuu readies his first shot. "Of course."

The captain is very good, good enough to take his first service game without too hard a struggle; he'd hardly have been a regular the previous year if he'd been merely decent. Yagyuu, however, is markedly better. Their practising has paid off, but he's also _motivated_. Niou hasn't had a chance to watch him play this viciously in ages. Yagyuu isn't aiming to injure, though his laser beam shot whistles dangerously close to the captain's face on more than one occasion. No, his viciousness is more elegant and subtle; he's showcasing the captain's various inadequacies as an opponent -- slowness, lack of reach, lack of power, inability to adapt. Niou would be humiliated to be treated that way on the court.

It's pretty goddamned sexy watching it happen to someone else, though.

Yanagi leans on the bar next to Niou after a while; Yagyuu is ahead 4-2.

"It's a beautiful sight, isn't it?"

"Paws off, he's mine," Niou says, with a grin.

"I meant our impending victory, Masaharu, not your doubles partner." Yanagi looks down at the court. "Though I admit he has a certain aesthetic appeal, too."

"Mm." Niou watches Yagyuu stretch for a return; he's putting an impressive amount of power into his smashes. Something's a bit off about his play -- the angles of his returns are subtly wrong, somehow -- but Niou can't pinpoint what's causing it. It's not going to change the outcome, anyway. "He's going to win."

"Yes, he is, and he's made his opponent look impressively incompetent." Yanagi glances up towards Yukimura. "Even if he forfeited suddenly, the captain would resign at this point."

Yagyuu slams the ball so it just skims the baseline; it's the same move Niou used to finish off Marui and it works on the captain just as effectively.

"Game to Yagyuu. Yagyuu leads, 5 games to 2".

The captain signals for a timeout, and beckons to Yukimura.

Their conversation is quite short, and Niou wishes he could hear it. The captain gestures towards Niou and Yanagi, and Sanada behind them. Yukimura's response looks polite and respectful, but whatever he says makes the captain's face go all sour. Niou tries not to laugh. Yukimura takes a seat on the coach's bench as the captain returns to his side of the court. His next serve is almost impressive, and Yagyuu fumbles the return -- Niou can see the opening he leaves as a result, and the captain is certainly good enough to use it to take a point.

It's the last point he takes in the match.

"Won by Yagyuu, 6 games to 2."

There's no cheering at the victory. Even Kirihara and Marui restrain themselves, while Yukimura stands impassively to one side of the court. The captain throws him an angry sideways glance, but has the grace to stride forward and shake Yagyuu's free hand.

The other team members enter the court and form themselves into an intimidating cluster with Yukimura front and centre. It's been a while; Niou's missed this sort of collective posing, even if he does have to repress a quiet snort at how cheap a trick it is.

"Captain," says Yukimura loudly, and his voice is edged with triumph, "I think we have our team."

The captain draws himself up. " _You_ have a team, Yukimura-kun. Congratulations. I hope you'll be as ruthless to your opponents."

Yukimura smiles evenly, as Yagyuu slots neatly into his place amidst the team members. Niou shoves him gently with a shoulder in welcome.

"I will be. As will my team."

"I'll inform the advisor." He gives Yukimura a half-smile. "I'm sure he'll be fascinated."

As he leaves, Yukimura turns and beams at his new team of regulars. "Team meeting, court A, twenty minutes. I'll address the rest of the club first."

Temporary dismissal, and most of the team head straight for the lockers or the water fountains. Yagyuu nudges Niou to one side as they exit, urgently. As soon as they are out of sight of the courts, he collapses heavily against Niou's side.

"Augh. Wait, stop, please."

"Shit, what's wrong?"

Yagyuu pulls off his power wrist, wincing. "I think I sprained my wrist, during that third game."

Niou gently examines Yagyuu's arm -- it doesn't look visibly swollen yet, at least. "And you kept playing those smashes? You moron."

"Most efficient way to beat him. The adrenaline kept it from really hurting."

"Yeah? Well, now you'll have to rest this completely until it's better. Ready to be left-handed for a while?"

Yagyuu pulls his arm back. "I suppose we can--"

"Renji said he thought you might need this," says Sanada, suddenly, from behind Niou. He hands Yagyuu an ice-pack; Yagyuu clasps it around his wrist with a sigh of relief.

"Did anyone else notice?"

"Yukimura. Otherwise, I don't think so -- I didn't until Renji told me to come find you. None of the non-regulars, certainly."

"Niou-kun and I will switch for practises, if you need us to appear at full aptitude."

"I'm glad you have a solution planned. Yukimura's talking to the rest of the tennis club; he's going to have to agree to allow challenges, given the circumstances."

Niou groans. Challenging isn't a terrible system in principle; it allows the pre-regulars to feel like they stand a chance to get on the team, and it does provide a way for any overlooked geniuses to elbow their way into the spotlight. But it's such a pain in the ass for regulars to have to keep defending their position. And, honestly, anyone with an injury will get all the opportunists focusing on them.

"Wonderful."

Sanada nods grimly. "I don't think many people will challenge Yagyuu, anyway, not after that display. Save your real pity for Kirihara. I heard some of the second-year pre-regulars saying they thought he'd be an easier target than his senpais."

Yagyuu laughs. " _Pity_ him? He'll massacre them all."

Niou can hear the pain buried in Yagyuu's laughter. "We should get you to hospital. Who knows, maybe we can persuade them not to give you a bandage."

"Ah, actually--" begins Sanada.

"--we'll wait until after the meeting," says Yagyuu, and sighs. "This is going to be a painful half an hour or so of pretending it's all fine."

"Don't be ridiculous, you can't do that." Niou thinks for a moment, then turn to Sanada. "Is anyone in the regulars' changing room? And are you needed for the next five minutes?"

"No..." Sanada gives him a suspicious look. "Why?"

"I'm about to sprain _my_ wrist, oh Sanada-fukubuchou, and my tennis bag will do the rest."

In the end, Sanada _accidentally_ trips Niou up outside the locker rooms; Niou curses pretty convincingly as he lands awkwardly on his right wrist in front of a couple of non-regular witnesses, and lets Yagyuu pull him indoors to tend to it. Sanada shoos away the onlookers for them -- he's a surprisingly useful conspirator, thinks Niou with amusement, as long as he's convinced it's for the team's benefit.

Switching appearances used to take a matter of a couple of minutes, back in middle school. This time it's complicated by the fact that Niou's come to practise in his regulars kit but Yagyuu is in the default non-regular kit; they actually have to trade their outfits fully. The other problem is Yagyuu's injury. It's making using his hand pretty painful; Niou can help him with the hair and clothes but he can't put his contact lenses in for him. Niou frowns as he puts on his fake-Yagyuu glasses.

"I suppose nobody's going to look that closely. And you can try to play for sympathy by leaning on me all the way there. Even though it's a wrist injury. Oh, my poor reputation."

"You know my eyesight's perfectly sufficient for me to walk unaided, Niou-kun."

"Aw, but I was looking forward to scowling at you longsufferingly."

It's strange, stepping onto the court to join the old team while dressed as Yagyuu. It's enough to prompt a moment of near-deja-vu, a little rush of nostalgic memory for middle school. Niou glances sideways at Yagyuu; he seems to be coping with his pain level okay for now. With this team, Niou's not expecting anyone to actually be _fooled_ by the switch; the charade is more for the few non-regulars peering in through the netting around the court edge.

Yukimura glances at Yagyuu's wrist and the ice-pack he's clutching to it. "Sanada tells me you fell, Niou?"

Ah, bless Yukimura for his complicity. Now the rest of the team are cued to play along and not to comment out loud on the switch; Niou relaxes a little. 

"Yeah, wrenched it when I tripped over his big feet," drawls Yagyuu, directing a disgusted look towards Sanada.

"Careless of you both, but I suppose it could be worse." Yukimura smiles faintly. "Go straight to the hospital after the meeting and have it looked at."

Niou nods. "I'll ensure he goes, Yukimura-buchou."

The title makes a little ripple of amusement and pride go around the team.

"Good," says Yukimura. "In which case, I'll keep this brief. You're all in challenge mode for at least the next two weeks. You will have at least half a day's notice for any challenge match; I'll try and minimise the number of challenges to no more than two per day but I can't promise it'll be possible."

They all nod, with varying levels of resignation evident on their faces.

Yukimura outlines a rough training schedule and then a few more specific points for everyone; Niou sighs internally at the amount of stamina training included. It's probably going to be necessary for Kirihara, Yagyuu and Jackal at least; three-set matches are a bitch to get through when players aren't used to them. Niou's schedule comes with an instruction to focus on volleys and precision; given that he's pretty good at pinpoint-landing his shots these days he feels a little put-upon until it clicks that he'll be following 'Yagyuu's' training schedule instead. Which involves speed and power training, mostly; he can live with that.

Yukimura gives a speech about Nationals which is probably very inspiring and so on; Niou really just wants him to wind it up so they can get to the hospital. And then he can get Yagyuu somewhere private and communicate quite how stupid it was for him to mess up his wrist but also just how hot Yagyuu looked while doing so. It's a complicated concept, so it might take a while.

Yagyuu elbows him back to attention, and Niou blinks. Yukimura is telling them that everyone will be practising doubles pairings this year, including himself in that everyone. That's... unexpected. Niou can't imagine Yukimura in a doubles game; Yukimura sweeps the court too efficiently by himself to allow another person to participate. He wonders what brought this about. 

There'll be a practise schedule put on the noticeboard in the next couple of days; those of them that need new uniforms will have them within the week. With that, they're dismissed; Yagyuu slings his good arm around him and whines that he's not being a diva but he _really_ wants to get some painkillers now.

At the hospital, the doctor proclaims Yagyuu's wrist definitely sprained; he's strictly instructed not to put too much stress on it and definitely not to play tennis with it. They argue the doctor into providing only a light support bandage, and Yagyuu is given some bright pink painkillers.

The first dose of those painkillers seem to kick in on the way back to school; to Niou's surprise, Yagyuu plaintively requests they go sit down in a park near Rikkai instead of heading right back. Once they find a bench, he lies down and sprawls so his head is on Niou's knee.

"Hey, you don't want to head back to school and grab our stuff?"

Yagyuu gives him a slightly goofy smile. "I'd rather not, Niou-kun. It's a nice day and we're really not in any rush."

"Ha, you sound like me. You do realise you've taken the wig off, right?"

"Mmm." Yagyuu turns on one side. "I probably shouldn't have; it's unusual for us to sit this way around, isn't it?"

"It is a bit."

"Sorry. I'm feeling rather light-headed."

"Don't worry about it. I don't mind you resting up for a bit. It's not like you're heavy."

"No, you're right to comment, someone'll see us. Perhaps we should go back after all."

Niou helps Yagyuu up with a faint sense of loss. This is stupid. If they _weren't_ an item, he'd find Yagyuu's behaviour amusing -- he'd probably tease him for being ungentlemanly -- but he wouldn't be worrying people would get the wrong idea. Or the right idea. Or something. "Hey, maybe we should go away for a bit."

"Where did you have in mind?"

"Somewhere that you can do that in public without us worrying who might be around."

Yagyuu gives him a wry smile. "I doubt either of our parents would agree to us vacationing together unsupervised."

Niou kicks a stone as they walk. "No, I guess not. But you know what I mean. I think it's going to start pissing me off soon that we have to keep being so careful."

"It's worth it."

"Well, sure, that's not what I mean. Of course it is." Niou gives Yagyuu a sideways look, and kicks his stone viciously. "Also kinda wondering how we're going to explain not dating anyone."

"Do we _have_ to explain?"

Niou thinks about it. "Probably? If we both stay single and never have girlfriends or even dates, people will think it's a bit odd unless there's a reason they can latch onto."

They can see Rikkai's side-entrance at the end of the street ahead of them. Yagyuu sighs, and leans against him for a moment, as if tired. "University won't be too long away, Niou-kun. Two years. Then we'll have more freedom."

Niou snorts. "Yeah, patience, I know. C'mon, let's shower and grab our things."

The pre-regulars locker room is empty; Niou picks up Yagyuu's bag and gestures towards the regular's changing room at the far end. Kirihara and Marui are lounging on the benches inside, in their normal uniform clothes, and he grins at them.

"Getting used to the surroundings?"

Marui stretches out luxuriously along the bench. "It feels _good_ to be in here. How's the wrist?"

Yagyuu holds up his arm -- his white support bandage shows at the edge of his sleeve -- and Marui winces in sympathy. It's actually a little weird not seeing familiar black at his cuff instead, and Niou wonders if he can cover the edge of the bandage with a de-weighted power wrist.

"Ah, man," Kirihara pouts, sitting up. "I wanted to play you at full-strength. Guess I'll have to wait."

Niou pads over to his locker. "What, so the rest of us aren't an interesting match for you now? Make do with chasing the three demons if you need something to occupy you, brat."

Yagyuu opens his bag and then looks around. "Which lockers are free?"

Niou opens the one next to his; Marui's stuff is in there. "Bunta, move your crap."

"What, why?"

"Two reasons: one, Yagyuu and I need to switch for practises until his wrist is fixed. Two, because I told you to."

Marui complies, grumbling a little; Yagyuu starts undressing, kicking his trainers into the now-free locker and grabbing his towel from his bag. Niou forces himself not to watch or fuss, and starts putting their wigs back into his locker instead.

Kirihara asks Niou who the main challenges on the high school tennis circuit are, as Yagyuu vanishes into the showers. Niou starts to pull off his own clothing as he answers as best he can given what he's heard; Hyoutei, Shitenhouji, Higa, Ginka, Seigaku, Jyosei. Not precisely the same teams as last year, or even the year before, but there'll be a lot of people they've played before.

"Yanagi can probably tell you more," he says, stepping into the showers. "Ask him."

The club showers have walls and doors that go no higher than about shoulder level; Niou assumes it's to keep the occupants from doing anything too risque in what is technically a public space. It also means that it's easy to see which showers are occupied at a glance. Yagyuu is leaning against the wall in his shower, looking sort of bewildered.

"You okay?" Niou asks quietly.

Yagyuu is holding his bandaged arm out of the way of the water, as instructed earlier, and he makes a frustrated gesture with his free hand. "I can't wash my hair properly like this, but I don't want to leave it sweaty."

Marui and Kirihara have showered already, Niou thinks, so they're probably not going to walk in. Even so, actually getting into the same shower stall is not a good idea.

He compromises by standing in the stall next to Yagyuu, so that there's still a wall between their bodies. He leans over it to rub soap into Yagyuu's scalp; Yagyuu looks so absurdly grateful that Niou is tempted to kiss him despite the stupid risk that would involve.

There's a cough from the door as Yagyuu ducks his head under the water to rinse the suds away. Niou glances around to see Yukimura, one eyebrow raised, at the entrance of the showers. He flushes for a moment, faintly embarrassed --- okay, they're in separate showers, but still, kind of awkward to be caught like this. Besides, Yukimura _knows_ they're an item. He's probably thinking Niou's actually perving on Yagyuu.

Yagyuu turns too. "I needed assistance."

"Of course." Yukimura walks closer, and pitches his voice quite low. "I'm hoping I don't have to remind you not traumatise people in here."

Yagyuu holds up his bandaged wrist. "I don't think I'd be in the right mood for that at the moment, actually."

"Ah, it's that painful?" Yukimura frowns, which isn't exactly a positive change but it does wipe his previous half-teasing, half-scolding expression away. "Niou has already gotten one challenge for tomorrow's practise; I'm not sure how you two want to handle that."

"Wait, I got a challenge and he didn't? I'm offended."

Yukimura shrugs. "I'll leave it up to you both which of you takes the challenge. Just wanted to be sure you knew."

"Thanks." Niou reaches into his own shower stall, flicks on the water, and grins at Yukimura. "So are you going to stay in here to make sure we behave ourselves? Or can I shower without an audience?"

There's a strange pause before Yukimura grins in response and ducks back into the other room; Niou wonders if Yukimura really doesn't trust them to behave. Or if he was in fact just tempted to stay and get a peek at whatever'd be visible. Niou's always sorta assumed Yukimura had the sex drive of a radish, but you never know.

Yagyuu dries off a bit, one-handed, then clutches his towel to himself and takes a deep breath. Niou scrubs himself vigorously and hurriedly; even so, by the time they get into the changing rooms they're deserted.

Yagyuu blinks at him owlishly as Niou does up his tie; he looks like the painkillers are making him light-headed again. Niou pats him gently on the shoulder and pulls on his own clothes; Yagyuu sits down carefully and stares into space.

"If you're still like this tomorrow, we're definitely not switching during the challenge. You'd lose me my spot."

"Agreed," says Yagyuu slowly, and he's actually wobbling a little. "I think it's getting worse; my balance keeps going."

Niou looks at Yagyuu, and sighs, reaching for his cellphone. "Okay, hang on."

He calls his mother; he's going to have to take Yagyuu home.

Yagyuu's mother is predictably concerned by her son's injury, and begins to quiz Niou thoroughly on which painkillers were given. Yagyuu is coherent enough to reassure her he'll be fine after a rest but insists he needs to go lie down right away.

She sends him upstairs, looking worried; Niou is left downstairs, a bit unsure of what to do.

"Are you staying here, Niou-kun?"

"Is it okay if I do? I can make sure he gets to school okay tomorrow, maybe."

"Of course. You're always welcome here. Can you take some food up for him?"

It's weird having to look after a sick Yagyuu; in other circumstances Niou might imagine it being kinda cute to look after him. But as things are, Yagyuu is tired and grumpy and reluctant to eat, and Niou concludes he's probably the crappiest nurse in the world when Yagyuu just gives up halfway through chewing a mouthful and flops back down again.

He nudges Yagyuu. "Hey, c'mon. Tell me what I can do to help, here."

Yagyuu mumbles something through his mouthful.

"Huh?"

What Yagyuu wants, it turns out, is to lie down and hug Niou as if he's some kind of oversized stuffed toy. He falls asleep pretty quickly once Niou lets him do that. The way he's lying traps Niou on the bed with him, and Niou doesn't think he can escape without risking knocking Yagyuu's wrist. It's embarrassingly cosy; Niou keeps expecting Yagyuu's mother to walk in and be horrified, but when she _does_ open the door to check on them, she just looks amused. Niou shrugs, trying to convey that it's not his fault Yagyuu is cuddling him.

She moves the tray away, then leans over him and feels Yagyuu's forehead. Yagyuu makes another indistinct noise at the contact.

"He'll probably wake up when the painkiller wears off," she tells Niou quietly. "Until then, I think you're stuck there. He used to do that to me when he was younger."

Niou nods. "I guess I'll try to sleep too. Um. The doctor gave him more pills, they're in his bag."

"I'd rather he didn't take any more of these, but I suppose if he's in a lot of pain then he should. Let him take a half-dosage if he needs it later. I'll talk to his father about other medication when he's back from the night shift."

"Alright." Niou looks exasperatedly down at Yagyuu. "He'd better not drool on me."

She laughs. "Goodnight. I'll turn the light off. Do you need a blanket?"

Niou lies there, fully alert, once she leaves; it's still faintly light outside. Yagyuu is not sleeping particularly restfully, from the feel of it; he's twitching quite a lot. Niou does his best to shift so they're both a bit more comfortable. It doesn't help much. For a start, his uniform is making his ribs itch annoyingly.

"Crap, I'm never going to get to sleep like this."

He peels Yagyuu's arms off him just enough that he can at least unbutton his shirt under the blanket; Yagyuu makes grumbling noises but is soon pressed up close to him again. Niou resolutely closes his eyes and tries to sleep, but it's way too early for his body clock.

Besides, he's still kinda thinking about earlier. Yagyuu's probably right that it won't be too long until university. And he'll wish it was longer later on; every time he talks to his uncle, he hears all about how having to support yourself and get a job is a pain and it's best to appreciate the freedom that youth gives you from that.

It's so hard, though. He wishes they didn't need to keep it a secret; after years of flaunting his various nonconformist traits, it just feels really strange to hide something as big as this. If they lived in Tokyo or even in central Yokohama, he'd feel a bit freer -- at least he could let Yagyuu nap on his damned lap if he wanted to. Hell, even the mall he'd gone to with Yanagi had been relatively okay; there'd been a few weird looks at the hand-holding but mostly people had just ignored them. Anonymity, that was the thing.

Maybe, even if they can't go away overnight, they can make some day trips on weekends; it might be nice to go into Tokyo or down to Kamakura, somewhere there are lots of people they can blend in with. If he has to, he'll put on a wig. Or a dress.

Come to think of it, Tokyo has love hotels, and much less risk of anyone seeing them use one than any in Yokohama or Kawasaki. That would be good; no risks of nosy neighbors or sudden visits from their schoolfriends during the times they have a house to themselves. Niou wonders how you actually use them; maybe you'd need a credit card to get a room in one. Still, it's worth investigating.

He feels Yagyuu sigh, and then he turns over and curls up facing away from Niou.

Niou slips out of the bed -- Yagyuu won't mind if he borrows some pyjama pants, and that way he might actually be able to sleep. He hesitates, then decides to also go brush his teeth while he has the chance. By the time he gets back to bed Yagyuu is half-awake and looking a bit forlorn at his absence.

"Sorry, I had to get up for a moment," he murmurs, hugging Yagyuu back against him. "Go back to sleep."

"Mm," says Yagyuu into his chest. "Missed you. You're warm and good to hug."

"Yeah?" Niou grins; Yagyuu is never quite this free with his thoughts about Niou usually. "I'm liking these drugs. You're being kinda adorable."

"I'm sorry." Yagyuu sounds serious, and Niou kisses the top of his head. "I should say nice things to you more often."

Niou shrugs. "I'm okay with how you are. Especially if you continue to get naked with me regularly."

"I tried getting undressed earlier but I couldn't get my fingers to work properly."

"Oh." Niou pushes gently at Yagyuu until he rolls over, and then starts unbuttoning his shirt. "You could have asked."

"I just did." Yagyuu shrugs the shirt up off over his head after Niou has undone a couple of buttons. "Ah, that's better."

Yagyuu sounds much more coherent than he did earlier. Niou wonders if the painkiller has worn off.

"How's your wrist?"

"I'm okay. Should sleep again, though, before it does start hurting."

"Okay." Niou brushes his lips against Yagyuu's forehead. "Don't be offended if I look like I haven't slept tomorrow. I'm kind of overthinking things at the moment."

Yagyuu wraps his arms around Niou again, and then drapes a leg over him too.

"'Kay. Don't think so hard though. I love you."

Wow, what the hell. Niou stares at Yagyuu, who has closed his eyes and looks like he's on the verge of sleep again. He clears his throat.

"Um, love you too?"

There's no response, and Niou thinks Yagyuu has probably fallen asleep. He stares up at the ceiling, his pulse racing.

Fuck. Yagyuu probably won't even remember this.

It takes Niou _hours_ to go to sleep.


	16. Yukimura

Yukimura's parents have started insisting he should have some sort of vague backup career plan should he relapse in a way which makes tennis unworkable but another career possible; apparently 'gardening', 'art museum work' and 'reading magazines about sports' don't count as real plans.

He's a bit surprised to find Niou there already, and casts a few curious looks towards Niou's pile of information as he grabs things for himself.

He coughs gently, after a while, not sure if he should intrude -- Niou looks distinctly _busy_ \-- but Niou glances up at Yukimura briefly, and then gestures vaguely to the seat opposite him. "Hey."

Yukimura sets down the stack of folders he's holding, carefully. "Indeed. Isn't this a bit forward-planning for you?"

"Nah, we've all got to make these decisions sometime." Niou grabs Yukimura's stack, spins it, and eyes the spines with an amused expression. "Archaeology, really?"

"Just an idle thought. Appeasing my parents. How about you?"

Niou spins his own files so Yukimura can see.

"And yours are... diverse."

"Nah, it's mostly mathsy." Niou plucks out one and flips it open idly. "Computing, engineering."

"And drama?"

"I'm a fantastic actor and you know it."

Yukimura laughs, relieved that Niou's willing to joke about this; it's been a little exhausting, constantly hearing how important his choices now are going to be. "What do you _want_ to do?"

"Get rich, live a life of idle luxury somewhere glamorous. You?"

"Tennis."

"Fuck, Yukimura, if you want _that_ , it's yours. Scouts have been sniffing around since junior high begging you to go pro. Why are you still here? You could quit and go to an actual tennis _school_."

Yukimura stretches, buying a moment to phrase his response so he doesn't sound quite as resentful as he feels. "Tezuka's parents might have let him miss out on most of high school. Mine won't. So I'll get a good education first. Come graduation, though, I'm joining the circuit as soon as I can. I'm surprised you're not tempted; surely you've gotten offers from scouts too."

"And compete with all you lunatics? Nuh-uh." Niou looks a bit conflicted, and then shoves the folder he had open towards Yukimura. "But I was looking into this."

'This' turns out to be a folder about the early university admission scheme; skipping over the last year of high school in favour of taking your entrance exams a year early. It means not graduating high school, technically -- you have to drop out before you apply. But once you have a degree, that's not really a problem; as long as you _get_ a place at university so you can get a degree, that is. If you don't pass the entrance examinations... well, Yukimura doesn't want to think about it too hard, but not even having a high school diploma sounds like a really bad idea.

"More universities are starting to get in on the idea now. Quite a few places in Tokyo are taking it up next year."

Yukimura makes a noncommittal noise, flipping through the pages.

"Including loads of medical schools. You just have to pass the entrance exams early, that's all."

"And have you talked to Yagyuu about this?"

"Not yet."

Yukimura hands back the folder. "Renji was looking into this too. Thankfully I'd already resigned myself to losing most of the team next year anyway."

"Huh. Is he going to do it?"

"Probably not; it sounds like the places he was most interested in discouraged it." And anyway, Yukimura doesn't think Renji will leave Rikkai any earlier than he has to. Not now the three of them have this new involvement tying them together; Renji will value that over progressing to university. It strikes him that he's absolutely certain about that, and it's a strangely warming thought.

Niou slouches in his chair, dropping the folder back in front of him with a thud. "I probably won't do it unless Yagyuu is up for the idea, honestly."

"Ah." Yukimura glances around; they're alone, and the door is closed, so it's safe enough. "For you, I think he'll consider it. But don't be angry if he's not enthusiastic at first. He'll have to rethink where he wants to apply, and explaining it to his parents is going to be hard."

"Yeah, yeah." Niou sighs, and then laughs abruptly. "Wait, you're giving me relationship advice, really?"

"Just think of it as friendship advice, if that's better."

"Ha, fair enough." Niou picks up the folder again. "I figure on us ending up in Tokyo; two of the best medical schools there are going to take early admissions next year, and there's a whole bunch of places I could find something I'd be okay studying. It'd be possible to get us both onto good courses in Nagoya or Osaka, too."

"I vote for Tokyo. We'd get to see you both sometimes. Otherwise you'll be too far to come visit."

"D'aww, that's sweet." Niou grins. "Says you, tennis boy. You turn pro, you'll be travelling all the time."

Yukimura smiles, though this has actually been kind of eating at him. Renji will probably go to a university in Tokyo; there are at least three universities there which he'd consider suitable. Sanada is vague on his plans but if he doesn't also pursue tennis then he'll likely stay either in Kanagawa or in Tokyo. If it's tennis, then he and Yukimura will see each other on circuit and Renji will likely retreat into his books for most of the school term. If Sanada stays behind -- either for the dojo, or to stay at Rikkai -- then Yukimura will be away from them _both_ for long stretches of time.

Yukimura wishes he could persuade Renji to take up tennis professionally so they could all compete together, but he knows Renji's first and truest love will always be learning. He's actually a little concerned that Renji won't ever set foot off a university campus again, once he's been admitted. Meanwhile, Sanada just has too many warring interests to commit to a decision yet. The worst situation in terms of collective time would be for Renji to be at university in Tokyo, Sanada to be in charge of the dojo here, and for Yukimura to be chasing tennis trophies around the world. But it doesn't matter; wherever they are, they'll find a way to make whatever time they can snatch together count.

He snaps out of the thought; Niou is giving him an assessing look.

"Aaand that was a lovelorn look if ever I saw one. Got a girlfriend tucked away somewhere you're not telling us about, buchou?"

"What? No, of course not."

Niou grins, and Yukimura nearly kicks himself for being that emphatic. "Riiiiight. No, don't tell me who it is, I'll have more fun guessing."

"I'd rather you didn't waste your time."

"Pfft." Niou stretches. "Now it's my turn to give _you_ some advice; if you don't have to keep it a secret, don't."

Yukimura tips his head to one side. "My parents don't permit me to date yet, Niou. I don't have a girlfriend, truly."

"Ah, so you're just pining for someone, then?"

Yukimura picks up his art historian folder. "I can live with my situation. How awkward is Kanazawa to get to, do you think?"

That evening, Yukimura considers what could happen to the team this year if Niou and Yagyuu do try for early university admission. They'd presumably both need to start devoting a lot more time to studying immediately so as to prep for the entrance examinations. Which means they'd have less time and attention to devote to tennis this season.

He really wants to take Nationals again as team captain. It's hard sometimes, being in charge. He wants his friends to get what they want from life -- and for all his jokes, he does think of Niou and Yagyuu as friends as well as teammates. It's just that, well, he wishes their goals meshed better with his.

Yukimura wishes _everyone's_ goals meshed with his.

Still. It's early in the year yet, and perhaps Yagyuu won't be interested in early admission anyway. There's still hope.

Yukimura picks up his little stack of name cards collected from tennis scouts over the past few years, and shuffles them idly. Futures, different futures, one in every card. Each one could be the person who'd lead him to sweep the US Open in future years with expert guidance, or who might lead him to ruin his career with terrible advice.

Yeah. On reflection, he can _absolutely_ understand wanting to be done with high school. It'll never be done with soon enough, as far as he's concerned.


	17. Yagyuu

Yagyuu twirls his racket idly. He's Niou today, after a few days of them simply playing as themselves. Both of them have challenges today and his right wrist still isn't quite at full strength. Niou, therefore, is busy playing Yagyuu's challenge match on the centre court.

It's a novelty to watch Niou play like this. When they're playing doubles, he can't really analyse Niou's performance of 'Yagyuu'. He's aware that Niou mimics his stances and posture and moves reasonably well, but he's usually a little busy to take in the full effect. This whole situation means he's getting to see how Niou thinks Yagyuu plays singles matches. Apparently, he's kind of a bastard.

Yanagi's perched on the steps to his left, watching the court intently. Yagyuu wanders over to sit with him, stretching out his limbs in Niou's lazy sprawl. Yanagi had a challenge match earlier too. Everyone's gotten challenged over the past few days, even Yukimura. It's getting to be beyond ridiculous. Most of the matches are too easy to even count as good practice.

"Hey, data man. How was your match?"

"Simple enough." Yanagi watches Niou slam the next shot hard and angled so that it buzzes past the challenger's ear. "We'll only keep challenges available for the next week."

"That's still too long. Aren't you sick of all this?"

Yanagi keeps his attention fixed on Niou. "A little. But I'm getting some interesting data from the matches. He's very invested in defending you, isn't he?"

Yagyuu shrugs. "Of course. He knows I'd torment him for months if he lost me my place on the team."

Niou hits a curved shot this time; it curls behind his opponent's back foot and startles them into making a noise like an angry squeak. Yagyuu laughs; one of the joys of being Niou is that he can be openly cruel in his appreciation of these things.

"Tell me," asks Yanagi, without glancing away from the match, "are you two going to be able to play doubles with other team members without the other one getting jealous?"

"I don't see it being a problem. You think we can't separate tennis from our private lives?"

"Most of us can't." 

This time, Niou's opponent actually manages to return a shot. Yagyuu grins; it's sweet that the boy's still trying.

"Has he spoken to you about university yet?"

"Yes, he shared his grand plan. It cuts down my options rather significantly, but it's still a tempting thought."

Down on the court, Niou's opponent misses his next return and looks like he's on the brink of throwing his racket on the floor. Niou-as-Yagyuu is impassive as he waits for the first-year to gather his composure and serve.

"If you need advice, I've done some research."

"Thanks. Are you going for it yourself?"

"No, I think not. I've too much tying me to Rikkai."

Yagyuu nods, and asks, offhandedly, "Like Yukimura?"

Yanagi doesn't answer, and Yagyuu thinks _aha_. All these shifting boundaries. Niou was right.

"I'm happy for you both," he says. "And I have to admit that my partner there made the connection, not I."

"Mmm." Yanagi stares at the court. "You mean, he made a wild guess that fits some of your observations."

"If it makes you happy to pretend it's not accurate. Does Sanada know?"

Niou delivers an arcing lob that his opponent completely misreads, and takes the game. It's a rout; the first-year didn't even score a point. Yagyuu grins in approval.

"Answering that would be an admission that there was something to know."

Yagyuu snorts. "Yes, of course it would. How foolish of me to expect you to be caught out like that."

Yanagi smiles, faintly. "Quite. Shouldn't you go deal with Masaharu's challenge now?"

Yagyuu struts down onto the court obediently, spinning his racket lazily in his left hand. This game is as straightforward as the rest, or possibly even more so. All the serious opponents seemed to wear out their determination in the first week. He supposes it's just as well that nobody has presented a serious challenge; he's learning how to perform a decent mimicry of Niou's Tezuka illusion -- it's one of the things they've been working on for doubles trickery -- but it's not nearly as convincing as Niou's own yet. And _Niou_ 'd be expected to pull out an illusion trick if he was being seriously pushed.

He flips a lazy salute at Yanagi afterwards, who is still on the steps; Yanagi's talking to Kirihara intently, and merely nods back an acknowledgement. The rest of the practise is pretty dull; after some volley practise with Jackal, he watches today's challenge match against Sanada. Sanada's obvious annoyance with his opponent is at least diverting, which is good; Yagyuu values the distraction from his own thoughts. He and Niou are spending that evening at his house. Niou has, to his credit, been carefully _not_ pressuring him to make a decision about leaving high school early. Yagyuu suspects it's going to have to be discussed tonight, however. Yagyuu's rather dreading the thought of explaining to his parents; raw ambition alone might be plausible but it wouldn't be enough justification for them to permit him to actually do it.

Niou nods, when Yagyuu raises this issue over the brochures he borrowed from the careers library. "But, I mean, if they _were_ cool with it... you'd really do it?"

"Really, this just makes my existing shortlist a little shorter. Jikei starts taking early applications this year. And Kyorin is also supposedly considering allowing them. Otherwise my best existing option would be Dokkyo which would be... inconvenient, really. Utsunomiya's okay but I'd rather Tokyo."

"Yeah, I could aim at a course nearby but it'd be much harder to pretend that was prompted by anything except following you up there."

They lapse into silence for a moment, and Yagyuu thinks: he would, though. He'd go there if he had to, for me. I hope I'm worth it.

"Right, well," says Niou, after peering at the brochures again, "Jikei or Kyorin, then. Tokyo either way, that gives me hundreds of options."

Yagyuu sighs; Niou has been stubborn about his aims. "I think you could try and apply for the top universities, if you really wanted. You're capable of it."

"Yeah, whatever, I think I'd like to not kill myself trying to study for somewhere like Keio, thanks. Maybe one of the technical universities would be worth trying."

"Good luck convincing your parents that Rikadai is going to be that much better than Rikkaidai would be."

Niou sticks his tongue out and hands him a brochure. "Here. Kogakuin. It looks good, I think."

In fact, it looks great, for the sorts of topics Niou seems to like. Niou dithers for a while over the courses, torn between options. Yagyuu eventually has to take the brochure out of Niou's hands and tell him that he can be more precise later; the most important thing is a choice of place right now.

Yagyuu sets the brochure aside, carefully. "And I suppose I should bring up the subject of early admission with my parents."

"Want me around for that? Or would that be really counterproductive?"

Yagyuu considers. "I think they'll probably ask if it's your idea. You might as well be there to defend yourself."

Dinner is actually an ideal situation today; Yagyuu's sister is away at a friend's house, and Yagyuu's father is home at a reasonable hour for once. Niou fidgets a bit as they eat, but allows Yagyuu to wait until he's gathered his courage to say, "Niou-kun and I have been discussing the early admission scheme. For universities."

Yagyuu's father peers at Yagyuu over his glasses. "Wouldn't that require you to leave high school incomplete?"

"Yes."

"Then I think it would be foolish of you to do so."

"With respect, father, I think attending university would be a more sensible use for the money you're currently paying to keep me at Rikkai."

Yagyuu's father leans back in his chair. "And you, Niou-kun. Your family approve of this scheme?"

"We chose to inform you first, Yagyuu-san."

He steeples his fingers and sighs. "Alright. I assume you have prepared your arguments; after dinner, come make your case in my study."

They both nod, and Yagyuu nudges Niou's knee under the table; this is a far better response than he'd feared.

Yagyuu's father is, in fact, rather receptive to the idea once Yagyuu mentions the precise schools he's interested in -- Yagyuu suspected he expected that the options would be less prestigious than they actually are. Yagyuu shows him the brochures and pamphlets, and explains the procedure for early admission. His father nods approvingly, and then looks over the brochures for Niou's preferred choice too.

"I do have a question for you both. What will you do, if you don't pass the entrance examination?"

Niou looks sheepish. "I was hoping to ask Rikkai before starting this whether I -- we -- could return to finish high school in that circumstance. They don't have to permit it, and we'd miss a month of classes that we'd have to make up. But I think they might be willing."

"They'd probably insist -- for either of us -- that we remain at Rikkaidai for undergraduate studies if they took us back," says Yagyuu. "And I think they'd only agree for the top students; for Yanagi-kun I imagine they'd make the exception, for instance."

"You're not far behind him in scores, so I think they'd let you through too. And right now I'm in the top ten _and_ I'm a nationally-ranked tennis champion; maybe I can persuade them that my combined virtues are worth keeping me around for."

Yagyuu's father pushes the brochures back across the table. "Very well. I will permit you to pursue this, on two conditions. One, you -- both of you, ideally -- start at cram school as soon as possible. Two, and more long-term..."

"Do you want him to quit the tennis team?" asks Niou, quietly.

"No. I've told Hiroshi already, I trust him to manage his involvement there; if he needs to reclaim the time from it, that is his own choice. The second condition is that you take an assessment test after six months. If you are not deemed to be on course to pass the examinations by that point, you'll remain in Rikkai through third year."

Yagyuu nods. "Thank you, father."

"Niou-kun, consult your parents as soon as possible. Hiroshi, if Niou-kun's parents refuse to allow this, will you still want to continue?"

Yagyuu frowns. The honest answer is no -- really, he'd prefer an extra year's breathing space, not to mention that part of the _point_ is to be with Niou -- but that's not the correct answer to give in this case; it will make it look like this scheme is entirely tied to Niou's desires.

Niou snorts. "It's fine, don't feel you have to spare my feelings here; I won't be offended if you say yes."

"Very well, then yes, I would," says Yagyuu, reluctantly. "I'd rather have his help, but I'd still do this on my own."

The satisfied smile on his father's face is reassuring. Yagyuu just hopes he doesn't _have_ to follow through with his assertion.


	18. Niou

Niou can't stay long after they tell Yagyuu's father; they barely manage time to snatch one kiss before he has to go to catch his bus.

He's grown rather used to the journey between their houses; at first it had annoyed him when his parents had moved to a house quite so far away from his best friend, but now he's sort of glad, as it means they have the perfect reason to stay over at one another's houses all the time. The bus winds through a bunch of residential areas near Yagyuu's house -- it's a nice area, and several students from their school live around there, so there's occasionally someone he knows on the same bus. To get home this way, he changes bus once (not far from Marui's place) and then catches another bus the rest of the way. It's a route that goes past two schools they've played at local and prefectural competitions in the past; he's spied on their players a few times but they're no real threat.The journey is long enough to make him a bit drowsy; thankfully it's about a mile to walk from the end back to his house, and that usually wakes him back up again.

His mother's waiting up for him; his father has already gone to sleep, most likely. She fusses over him a little as usual; he obediently puts his dirty kit in the laundry and packs his schoolbag for the morning while she quizzes him on his schoolwork.

"Everything okay at tennis practise today?"

"Oh, yeah, thanks; hey, can I talk to you and Dad about something tomorrow evening? Nothing bad," he adds hastily at her expression, "just university options I wanted to get sorted. Applications and stuff."

"Sure. It's a bit early to be actually applying though, isn't it?"

He scratches at his neck a bit. "Well, uhm, maybe. That's kind of part of the discussion."

She looks rather suspicious. He holds out his hands placatingly.

"I'll tell you more tomorrow, I promise. With dad."

The next evening Niou skips the last half-hour of practise, with Yukimura's permission. Yagyuu isn't going with him, but Niou's pretty confident he can manage this conversation alone.

His father, as he half-expected, hands him the early admissions brochure as he kicks off his shoes.

"Your mother and I guessed you've been looking into this."

"Yeah." He takes the brochure. "Um, I know you probably think it sounds crazy."

"Masaharu, you're a smart boy, and your teachers constantly tell us that you are ahead of the schoolwork and easily bored. I'm hardly surprised that you want to skip forward."

He follows his father through to the lounge. His mother is curled up on the sofa, with another copy of the brochure. She waves it at him.

"Where are you thinking of going?"

"Kogakuin, in Tokyo. I have their prospectus upstairs; they do good engineering and computing courses. The Tokyo University of Science is my backup choice."

His father nods. "And is Yagyuu-kun going along with this scheme of yours?"

Niou blinks. His mother raises an eyebrow. "What, is that a 'not yet?' or a 'how did you know?'"

"The latter, actually." He sits down. "His father is tentatively in favour as long as we pass an assessment halfway through this year, and he'd be happier if I also attended the cram school Yagyuu'll be going to."

"I see."

Niou's sister Ikuna is standing by the door to the kitchen; she's clearly eavesdropping, and also just as clearly isn't bothered about Niou knowing. He ignores her, and tilts his head to one side, trying to gauge his parents' reaction. "So are you hating the idea?"

"That depends. Where is Yagyuu-kun applying?"

"Jikei. Kyorin, as a second choice."

"I'm surprised you're not both applying to the same university."

"It'd be a bit dumb if we did. We do want to study different things."

His father gives him a long, appraising look. "I doubt we could convince you that this is not worth pursuing, and I trust Yagyuu-san to have pointed out all the things you need to remember about the risks you are taking."

"Does that mean you're saying yes?"

"On the same terms, I suppose. We'll send you to cram school. You'll have to schedule tennis and cram school as appropriate."

"Sure."

Ikuna has been looking rather irritated for the last couple of exchanges, and finally interrupts. "Masaharu, I need to talk to you, please."

His father shrugs, indicating that he is finished.

His mother just waves a hand. "I want to see that prospectus when you two are done talking."

"Um, okay." He glances at his sister; she doesn't look at all impressed with him.

They trudge up the stairs silently, and she shoves him -- quite hard -- into his room. She locks the door behind them, flicks on his TV to something noisy, and then hisses, "are you crazy?"

"Er, probably?"

Ikuna smacks him, quite hard, on the upper arm, but keeps her voice low. "I _know_ , you idiot. And I don't mind you messing around, but if you're fucking with your education just so you can set up a love-nest then I will hit you a lot harder. And then I'll tell our parents."

"Whoa, whoa, wait." He rubs his arm. "You know what, exactly?"

"You two are quiet, but, brother dear, not that quiet. Our walls are thin and my room is next to yours."

"Oh." He thinks about that for a second. "Oh _god_. I'm sorry. We'll be quieter in future."

"I said already, I'm okay with you fooling around with your friend. But not if it means you're compromising your future. Both your futures."

"It's not just fooling around." She looks dubious, and he sighs. "Whatever, it isn't. All this is doing is accelerating things a year, honest. It's exactly the kind of place I'd want to go anyway -- better than I'd be picking if I wasn't being pushed by him, to be honest."

She picks up the brochure from his table. "Is this where you're applying, then?"

"Yeah, it's not top tier but it's still pretty tough to get into -- but their whole focus is the sort of stuff I want to study. And Yagyuu's applying to one of the best medical schools in the country; he's not compromising anything. I promise."

She's still looking dubious.

"Come on, you think Yagyuu-san would have agreed otherwise?"

"...alright, maybe you're right." She slumps onto his bed. "Fine, I won't tell them you've hooked up. But you'd _really_ better get into this place. If I see you slacking on your studies, the deal's off."

Niou nods, and sits next to her. Eesh. Someone in his family knows he's sleeping with his best friend, and the world hasn't ended.

She gives him a sidelong look. "Are you expecting me to give some sort of further opinion here?"

"Kind of, yeah."

"Ah." Ikuna leans back. "You don't need my permission, and you won't listen if I tell you to knock it off. And I like Yagyuu-kun, really. If anything he's too good for you."

"Gee, thanks."

"So you think it's love, I guess. Do you think he loves you?"

"Uh. Yeah? We're not good at talking about that sort of shit, but he kind of said it once."

She nods, and pulls a wry face. "I'm shocked; boys not talking about feelings?"

"Hey, he knows I care, and I know he cares. That's the main thing. And the sex is amazing, I gotta say." It's so totally worth it to see Ikuna's expression as she cracks up.

"Oh god, too much, too much. You're my little brother, I don't want to think about you getting laid, okay? And especially not with a guy."

"I thought you didn't care?"

"It's still _weird_. And it's not like you've liked any other boys."

Niou bites his tongue on the instinctive 'shows what you know' response, but unfortunately his sister has long experience of reading his expressions.

"Oh god, you have? But you had girlfriends."

"Yeah, I know. It's not like it's all the guys, but it isn't just Yagyuu."

"And we're back to too much information, I think." She looks at his clock, and sighs. "Right, we should go back down now; what do you want me to say when our nosy mother asks what I needed to talk to you about?"

He shrugs. "I dunno. Tell her you wanted to give me a speech about avoiding drugs, gambling and women?"

"Maybe I'll tell her I thought you had a girlfriend and wanted to warn you you'd have no time for relationships this year. Which, y'know, is still kind of true."

"Hey, c'mon, he's my _motivation_."

She sighs again. "Yeah, alright."

They drift back down, and Ikuna hands their mother the prospectus. Niou is obliged to point out the courses he's most interested in; thankfully all of them seem to meet with her approval. He calls Yagyuu, on her prompting, to check which cram school Yagyuu's going to. Yagyuu says he'll find out and text back the name, then hesitates.

"So they've said yes?"

"Mmhmm. Same agreement as with your parents."

There's a pause, and then Yagyuu laughs shakily. "This year is going to be insane, Niou-kun. What are we letting ourselves in for?"


	19. Yukimura

Yukimura is packing his bags up at lunch when Yagyuu and Niou approach him; they're both hard enough to read that he's actually a bit worried at first.

"Can I help you?"

"Yukimura-kun, this isn't a resignation from the team, but we _are_ both leaving Rikkai at the end of the year."

"Oh." Yukimura thinks for a moment; the most important issue is that they're _not leaving the team yet_. "Your parents agreed? Do you need to do extra schoolwork and so on?"

Yagyuu nods. "We can fit in cram school around practise most of the time; if we might have permission to leave a little early on Wednesday and Thursday?"

"As long as you're not missing the early practises too, I suppose I can accommodate that."

Niou stretches, rolling his eyes at the condition. "No sleep for us. I can tell I'm going to be a coffee addict by the time we win nationals."

"Your confidence is noted."

"Oh, we'll win. When do we stop getting challenges?"

Not soon enough, thinks Yukimura. "I've told the non-regulars they have until Friday. You both already have challenges lodged for Friday, as a result. How's your wrist?"

"Healing fine -- I should be capable enough for my own challenges."

"Good. Next week I want the regulars to start playing a rotation of practise matches against each other; we've all gotten a bit complacent, I think. It's unacceptable for us to be this unprepared."

Yagyuu exchanges a look with Niou, then tugs on the brim of an imaginary baseball cap. "No slacking, understood."

Yukimura blinks, then smiles ruefully. "Sorry, I slipped right into buchou mode there, didn't I."

"Just a bit, yeah," says Niou. "It's okay, you can't help it."

"I am glad for you both, really. But it'll be odd not to have you around next year."

"Enh, you'll see us plenty enough, it's only Tokyo. You can visit, as long as you don't mind having to squeeze into whatever tiny space we're sharing."

Yukimura leans back in his chair and looks around; the room is empty. Well, no time like the present. "So, Renji tells me that you think he and I are an item."

Niou laughs. "Ah, Yaaaagyuu, five hundred says we'll get a denial."

Yagyuu shakes his head. "Five hundred says we won't get even that."

"Denying it would only make you more certain it must be true." Besides which, Yukimura feels a little less guilty for evading the truth instead of lying outright. He sighs, and stands up. "Just keep your speculations to yourself, will you? My parents would be furious to hear such rumours."

Niou slings an arm around Yukimura's shoulder. "Ah, but next year, you can always come crash on our floor if they kick you out."

"And have you two gouge me for rent? No thank you."

They all walk towards the food hall together; Niou still draped over Yukimura. He leans his head in conspiratorially. "So, _have_ you told Sanada yet?"

Yukimura rolls his eyes. "If we had something to tell him, we would. Renji and I are not a couple." 

Well, it's technically true, at least; they'd tell Sanada anything they needed to, and three is not two.

"Ah, daaaamn, I was right. Pay up, pay up."

Yagyuu sighs, pulling out his wallet to oblige. "You disappoint me, Yukimura-kun."

"I tried to spare you, but if you insist on betting on my love-life then it's your own fault."

Renji is waiting by the food hall entrance; presumably Yukimura is looking as put-upon as he feels because he's certain Renji is trying not to laugh as Yagyuu coaxes Niou into not manhandling their buchou any more than he already has. They drift off together; Yukimura hopes that they're only planning on eating lunch, but as long as he doesn't hear otherwise he probably doesn't need to worry.

It's Yukimura's turn to buy Renji lunch, today; Sanada has gone to see to some Kendo club emergency, so it's just the two of them for now.

They find a quiet spot on a table set against a wall, and Yukimura is barely two bites into his meal when Renji nudges his knee under the table and indicates the corner to their left; Marui is talking in a low undertone to a first-year girl Yukimura doesn't recognise.

"His girlfriend," murmurs Renji. "As of a few days ago."

"Ah."

Yukimura glances at her; he can't tell if she's the type who'll cheer her boyfriend on from the sidelines or if she'll resent the time he spends at practise. Either way could be a problem, either one could distract Marui too much.

"I believe she's a pre-regular in the girl's baseball team."

That's promising; hopefully she's serious enough about it that she'll be okay with the demands of the tennis season.

Renji steeples his fingers. "Seiichi, sometimes you are too easy to read. Stop thinking about the impact this will have on his tennis for a moment; you should be happy for him. He really likes her."

"Eh?" Yukimura flushes. "Ah, yeah, sorry."

"You're even more single-minded about victory this year than usual."

Renji's right, and Yukimura could list the reasons if pressed. Partly he has an urge to prove to himself that he can hold a relationship together and still win nationals -- if he can't, then it doesn't bode well for his future career. Partly it's the awareness that next year will take several of his best players away from him and that will compromise the chances of winning; he can't in all fairness put pressure on people to stay in the team in the last year of high school.

Mostly, though, he has this sensation that if he can win nationals with this precise lineup, with this team, then it will somehow overwrite their loss against Seigaku. It can't really count as a proper loss, not if he wins in another year with the same team.

He smiles at Renji. "Thankfully I have you to remind me not to let it consume me, as usual."

"Hmm." Renji takes up his chopsticks again. "That's quite a task. I think perhaps I should defer it to Genichirou this year."

Yukimura blinks. "You want me to rely on _Genichirou_ to be the voice of reason when it comes to prioritising tennis?"

"Yes. It'll be good for him. Train him in the habit."

Oddly, Yukimura can see the point. He thinks for a moment. "Would you be willing to remind _him_ to remind me?"

Renji's expression doesn't flicker. "Of course."

"Then I'll ask him."

They finish their meal in companionable quietness; afterwards, Renji allows Yukimura to sketch him as he reads in the library. Yukimura knows it's predictable for artists to use lovers as models, but he thinks a comparative study -- Renji at rest, Sanada in motion -- would be rather striking as a project. And a project is a good idea if he's getting obsessive; something else to take focus from the tennis.

With that in mind, when he and Renji visit Sanada's house that weekend, Yukimura rises early and follows Sanada down to the dojo -- Renji makes a vague noise as they leave, but doesn't seem willing to join them.

He sits in a corner of the dojo as Sanada runs through his morning practise; he bought a camera with him with a view to using it to take snapshots, but he's actually rather enjoying the challenge of sketching the shapes of Sanada's _kihon_ as fast as he can -- the figures he draws don't look that much like Sanada, but they do have an expression of movement that Yukimura feels rather pleased by.

Sanada, after he is done, flips through Yukimura's pad. "Huh. This looks different to the sort of thing you've done before. Is that just because you were working fast?"

"Mmm." Yukimura digs in his bag, and pulls out the pad he'd used to sketch Renji. "I did these yesterday; I think I might try and redo them sometime at a similar pace."

"Won't that work against the spirit of it? if you're going for moving vs still as a theme, then his should be drawn more slowly?"

"Maybe. Won't know until I try."

Sanada nods, and hands them back. "I think he was a bit offended at first, you know."

"Renji? What, by me drawing him reading?"

"By the 'still' thing. I think he objected to being seen as, er, the less active of us. Like it was a dig at his, um, issues."

Yukimura looks down at his sketches. "Oh, please tell me you're kidding?"

"I think he decided not to be insulted by it; reading is not a high-motion activity, after all."

"Maybe I should include sketches of you both playing tennis. Or both meditating."

Sanada shrugs. "If it won't compromise your concept. At least making the sketches would reassure him you don't think of him solely as the immovable rock to my unstoppable force."

"Ha. You're also a mountain, remember. I get two big rocks to depend on."

They smile at each other. Yukimura fiercely suppresses the urge to try and steal a kiss -- even if Sanada hadn't requested that they not kiss while any of his family were around, he suspects that kissing in the dojo would horrify Sanada on principle.

"I need to do my chores now, however; are you returning to sleep?"

"I can stay awake if you want?"

Sanada shrugs. "You'll only distract me. Go check on Renji."

The lights on in the house are a clear sign that the rest of Sanada's family rise nearly as early as he does. It feels a little weird to return to bed. Renji, when Yukimura returns, seems to be still asleep. He curls up against Yukimura's back as he lies down on the futon, however, and he's so delightfully warm that it takes a moment for Yukimura to notice anything else.

Like the fact that Renji is impressively hard; his erection is pressing quite firmly into Yukimura's thigh, and when Yukimura turns towards him slightly to dissuade him -- Renji's probably half-asleep, and it feels weirdly like he's taking advantage -- Renji actually pushes himself up against Yukimura's hip. He lets out a purring sigh as he does so, and Yukimura immediately feels his own groin tighten in response.

He nudges Renji in the side. "Hey, wake up, you."

Renji just pulls Yukimura tighter, and nuzzles at his neck. "Seiichi," he murmurs, and Yukimura can hear enough alertness to make him realise that Renji isn't so asleep after all.

"Yes," says Yukimura. "Don't, not here, okay. Genichirou's family are awake."

"Mmm. Was imagining you two together. In the dojo. You pressing him down onto the mats, pulling off his keiko-gi..."

Yukimura blushes. "Shh."

Renji slides a hand under Yukimura's pyjama top, splaying his hand warmly across Yukimura's stomach. "Think we can convince him to bring his do-gi to my house later?"

"Not if he hears you talk about it like this."

"Shame." Renji's voice sounds very languid, his hand is inching tantalisingly across Yukimura's skin, and he's _still_ very hard against Yukimura's leg. "It's very inspiring."

"Renji, I swear, if you don't stop that, I'll kiss you. And then Genichirou will catch us doing something he asked us not to do here. And doing it without him."

"Threatening me with kisses? Pfft, you're really terrible at dissuasion." Renji does remove his hand, however, and Yukimura takes a deep breath.

"I didn't realise you had such a fetish for his uniform," he says lightly, and Renji snorts.

"No more than I suspect _you_ have for either me or him in tennis kit."

"Ha. I preferred the red, even if we didn't get to use it much."

"I'm sure I still have mine somewhere, if you really mean that."

Yukimura laughs. "Quite the picture we'll make at your place later; Sanada in his do-gi, you in your middle school jersey. Makes me wonder what Genichirou would want me dressed in?"

"Anything but hospital pyjamas, I suspect."

They doze for a while, until Sanada shakes them both gently awake some time later.

It turns out not to be too hard to persuade Sanada to bring his uniform; Yukimura asks him to bring it 'for further sketches' and Renji manages to look innocent of any complicity in the request. Renji digs out his old red tennis jersey and sits next to Sanada on the floor in his room, both of them in meditation pose, as Yukimura sketches them.

"I'm surprised that's not smaller on you," Yukimura says, after about twenty minutes, as he flexes his fingers for a moment. "I mean, tighter."

Renji tugs at the wrists--it's definitely too short on him, even if it still zips up. "It was always too loose before; side-effect of being tall for my age."

"It's a better colour, though, definitely. I wish they hadn't gone back to the yellow."

"I don't know. I've grown fond of the yellow over the years."

Sanada has been looking curious for a while, and finally leans sideways to poke the jersey in amusement. "I assume I missed some conversation earlier that led to this choice."

"Actually, you prompted it."

"I did?"

Renji smiles. "Mostly by us discussing the impact of your current outfit."

Yukimura sets down his sketchpad and pencil. "What was it you wanted me to do? Press him down onto the mats in the dojo?"

"And slowly strip him, I think I said."

"That sounds awfully forward of me, don't you think, Genichirou?"

Sanada raises an eyebrow. "I could be convinced to let you get away with it, now we're not there. Is that why you actually wanted me to bring this with me?"

"Pretty much."

"You could just have _told_ me that. That's not a no," he says, as Yukimura pouts, "just an observation. I'm not nearly as prudish as you seem to think."

"On the topic of observation," says Renji, moving to the futon, "I'm going to just watch. For now."

Sanada gives Yukimura the anticipatory smile that Yukimura has only really seen since this whole thing started; it isn't quite the same as the one he wears when winning on the tennis courts, even if it's born of the same confidence. He's still sitting seiza, so Yukimura straddles him and sits in his lap to kiss him. It's not that hard to tip Sanada backwards onto the floor from there.

He slides his hands into the slits at the side of the hakama, and pinches at Sanada's hips to make him buck upwards; the friction is wonderful so Yukimura does it again and again until Sanada clutches at his wrists to stop him.

"Don't tease."

Yukimura grins, and instead starts undoing the knots at Sanada's waist; he's a little stymied by how to undo the ones at the back but he eventually just pulls Sanada up into a sitting position and fumbles a bit until they fall open. Sanada captures his mouth in a kiss just as he frees the last one, and Yukimura gladly submits to that, feeling Sanada tug at the base of his t-shirt pointedly.

He helps with the removal, and as Sanada pulls it up over his head, he hears an inhalation, as if Sanada is shocked.

Yukimura freezes. "Huh?"

"No, no, don't stop," Sanada murmurs, pulling the t-shirt off, entirely, and Yukimura tries to comply. Sanada's voice is barely audible as he says, into Yukimura's ear, "Renji is _touching_ himself."

Yukimura kisses Sanada again, and wishes he could see Renji without being obvious. He slides his mouth back to Sanada's ear after a moment, and murmurs, "Good."

Sanada lies back down, and Yukimura dispenses with the last tie; it's not hard to slide the hakama out from underneath them. He considers for a moment -- what was it Renji said, precisely? -- and then carefully, slowly, undoes Sanada's jacket, kissing each inch of bare flesh that appears as he does so.

He glances towards Renji as he pushes the jacket off Sanada's shoulders entirely. Renji's hand is fully inside his shorts and his wrist motions are slow and deliberate and unashamed. His expression is very intense and focused as he watches them; Yukimura shivers with an unexpected extra pulse of arousal.

Sanada, meanwhile, is reaching towards Yukimura as if weary of the teasing again; he's also grinding his hips upwards rather regularly. Yukimura catches his wrists and stretches forward; holding them above Sanada's head as he kisses him again, flexing his hips into Sanada's as he does so. Sanada responds by spreading his legs out, forcing Yukimura's legs apart too; unbalancing Yukimura enough to make him let go of Sanada's wrists so he can stop himself collapsing.

Yukimura is about to protest, when Sanada rolls them both over, sits up and rather determinedly starts unbuttoning his pants.

"Hey!"

"Shut up, I want you naked."

Yukimura bats his hands away, braces his legs, and then rolls them back over _again_ , pointedly. "Soon."

Sanada sighs, and then Yukimura slides backwards along his legs, pulling Sanada's underwear down with him. Sanada's arguments soon cease, though, as Yukimura also pointedly gets rid of his own remaining clothing before re-settling himself on Sanada's thighs.

Sanada sits up again, and hauls Yukimura in close so that he can wrap his hands around both of their erections. Yukimura leans back, resting his weight on his hands, allowing Sanada to take over entirely; he'd sort of been planning to do most of the work here but he's more than willing to go with the flow.

He hears a faint moan from Renji, and risks a glance towards the futon. Renji's shorts are around his knees now; he is watching them intently and stroking himself in time with the movements of Sanada's hands. He gives Yukimura a pleading look that Yukimura can't quite decipher.

"Renji," he moans, and Sanada squeezes and flexes his hand, making every nerve in his body sing. "Join us?"

He is by their side with surprising speed; Yukimura kisses him eagerly, and Sanada squeezes again, making him sigh into Renji's mouth.

"How," mutters Sanada, "just tell me, how I can..."

" _We_ ," says Yukimura, and pulls Renji so he's pressed right up against them; his jersey is faintly scratchy against Yukimura's side. "Can we touch you?"

Renji shakes his head. "Too much. I'll follow you, though, I promise."

Sanada kisses Renji this time, and strokes at himself and Yukimura with rising urgency; Yukimura finds himself watching with fascination--there's something incredibly debauched-feeling about watching Sanada work them both and being able to see Renji's hand stroking himself in time.

Renji actually reaches his climax before Yukimura and Sanada do; he pulls away from kissing Sanada and gasps as if surprised by the force of his orgasm. It doesn't take long for Yukimura to reach his peak as a result, and Sanada is moments behind, and Yukimura falls forward onto Sanada's shoulder--he's giddy, but also has a faint awareness that all three of them have just made a ridiculous mess of Sanada's do-gi, Sanada's stomach, and Renji's floor.

Renji slumps against them both, breathing very heavily.

Yukimura exchanges a worried look with Sanada. "Renji?"

"I'm okay, just... give me a moment."

They stay where they are, though the position is rather uncomfortable for Yukimura, and he suspects it's worse for Sanada; Yukimura is also faintly aware that he's kind of dripping onto Sanada's do-gi. Renji pushes himself back upright after about a minute, and he and Sanada carefully disengage as best they can.

Renji, without speaking, cleans himself up, pulls off his shorts and jersey, and then lies down on his futon, quietly staring up at the ceiling.

Yukimura and Sanada exchange another worried look, and then Sanada motions that Yukimura should go attend to Renji and he'll clean up the mess.

Yukimura gently sits next to Renji and nudges him. "Are you okay?"

Renji gives him a blank look. "I'm very happy. Shouldn't I be?"

"That was just... unexpected."

Renji sits up. "It was, I suppose. It's been a long time since I did that."

"...exactly how long?"

"Months." His mouth twitches into a wry smile. "Three months, three weeks, two days, in fact."

"What? Why?"

"It doesn't occur to me unless something's prompted me to, um, have interest. Which you two do, but I've mostly not had privacy or time to explore that."

Yukimura, meanwhile, has been calculating the dates, and gives Renji a disturbed look. "Oh god. You were dating Niou last time?"

"Ah. Yes. I was curious if I'd be able to, um, complete when thinking of a guy. Don't tell Genichirou."

"Don't tell me what?" Sanada pokes his head out of the bathroom; Yukimura had barely noticed him leaving. He sees their expressions and shakes his head. "Actually, no, I probably don't want to know. Renji, is it okay to use your laundry room?"

"Of course."

Sanada pauses, grabs a few other things from the floor, and runs off again.

Renji giggles, after a moment. "I can't believe I just did that in my old jersey."

"But you didn't hate it?"

"Hate it? Seiichi, I confess to being new at a lot of this, but I'm pretty certain that's not the sort of question you should have to ask."

"I just... you shut off entirely for a moment; if _I'd_ gone that quiet after the first time, you'd have been worried too."

"Oh." Renji looks abashed. "Sorry; I probably should have warned you I'd do that. It was overwhelming."

Yukimura sighs. "If you did it a little more often, it might not be. I thought you were planning on desensitising yourself?"

"I... you're right."

He looks guilty enough that Yukimura leans in and kisses him. "It's okay. But it's so hard to tell if we're pushing you too much, and..."

"Seiichi?"

"Hm?"

"This is a request: keep pushing me. Keep asking me. I'm quite capable of saying no." He ruffles Yukimura's hair. "And you're capable of respecting that."

Yukimura lies back down on the futon, and Renji does too. They both stare at the ceiling for a while.

"Do you suppose he's managed to clean it?"

"Which? Your old uniform or his new one?"

"His." Renji turns to face Yukimura. "Unless you really do have a thing for that jersey."

"I can live without it." Yukimura stretches. "We could go check on him."

"He took your clothes, I think. They must have gotten, er, splashed."

Renji's school trousers, they soon discover, are rather too long but only barely fit Yukimura in several other ways. Sanada raises an eyebrow in an amusement when they join him downstairs.

"Yes, yes." Yukimura plants his hands on his hips--the fabric is obscenely tight there--and then lifts one foot to wave the excess fabric a bit. "It's very amusing. Enjoy it while it lasts."

"We could get you some heels."

"Only if they're really pretty ones. With diamonds. And bows. We didn't ruin your clothes too much, did we?"

Sanada waves out the window; his hakama and keiko-gi are hanging on Renji's line along with Renji's jersey and Yukimura's trousers. Yukimura peers into the sink, and prods at the fabric in there.

"Your t-shirt. Couldn't wash it with anything else in case the colours ran. Should have washed it first, but I forgot."

Renji snorts. "Seiichi, we can't let him get away from us. He knows domestic witchcraft. We should marry him post-haste before anyone else realises."

Sanada frowns at the water, his face suddenly devoid of all contentment.

"Genichirou?"

"...I talked to my brother. My mother began organising omiai for him within a month of him leaving school. She said she ideally wanted him married before he entered university, so she could be sure he made a sensible match. And that she'd do the same for me, so I shouldn't worry if I don't get another girlfriend before school ends."

Yukimura winces. Renji doesn't say anything either; he just hunches in on himself.

Sanada rounds on them both. "What? No jokes, no clever ideas?"

"What do you want us to say?"

"I don't know. My brother just went along with whatever my parents wanted. I don't think he cared. His wife is nice enough and he's alright with that."

"Maybe she got the marrying urge out of her system with him?"

Sanada turns back to the sink and starts swirling Yukimura's t-shirt around in the water. "Maybe. Probably not. That's my fate I'm seeing. Two years before I have to start finding a wife."

Renji uncurls a little. "Even if you told her you didn't want to? Your brother didn't care, so he might not have told her to stop."

"I think she'd only let me put it off a while. Maybe until after university. But that's just a reprieve, at best."

"What about tennis?"

Sanada pulls out the plug. "Yeah. Maybe. But she might think it'd be best for me to get married off before I went on the circuit."

"Ah."

Yukimura sighs, and crosses to wrap his arms around Sanada from behind. "Genichirou, we won't give you up without a fight."

"Logically speaking," says Renji quietly, "I'll be at university at that point, regardless of other circumstances. You can live with me if you have to move out."

Sanada sighs, and wrings out Yukimura's shirt. "Thanks."

"Don't thank him yet, he'll have you keeping house for him. There'll be an apron and everything." Yukimura thinks for a minute. "Actually, maybe I'll move in too. That'd be worth seeing."

Sanada smiles at Yukimura over his shoulder, but his heart isn't in it, and Yukimura tightens his arms for a minute. He really can't think what to say that would make Sanada feel better. 

Renji leans past them both and snags the shirt out of Sanada's hands.

"You two, go back upstairs. I'll clear up in here."

They go upstairs, where Sanada picks up Yukimura's pad and starts looking at the few sketches that Yukimura had managed before getting sidetracked; Yukimura watches out of the window as Renji hangs his t-shirt up, and suppresses a giggle as Renji also rehangs everything Sanada had put out; presumably his arrangement was insufficiently efficient.

Sanada holds up one sheet after a while; it's quite a rough sketch but he and Renji somehow look very serene; Yukimura had already settled on that one as worth developing further.

"These are good. Would it be weird if I asked you to draw all three of us together sometime?"

"Hmm, no." Yukimura thinks. He could sketch them in front of a mirror, or just patch himself into one of these sketches. "It'll throw off my project to include me in it, though."

Renji leans over Yukimura's shoulder, and he starts -- he hadn't noticed Renji come in. "I'm not certain it would. Motion and rest; you're as capable of both as either of us are."

"Hm." Yukimura looks down at the picture, and traces the distance between the two of them; he can't work out where he'd fit into the composition. But he'll figure it out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Yes, Renji is somewhere on the demisexual spectrum and isn't necessarily being very healthy about how he's dealing with that.)


	20. Yagyuu

Yagyuu shoves his chair against the door and collapses onto the bed next to Niou.

"This was a stupid idea," says Niou ruefully. "Whose bright idea was it to try and leave high school early?"

"Ha." Yagyuu turns on his side. "I can't imagine."

Niou smiles at him. "There's early practise again tomorrow, right? I swear Yukimura's trying to kill us."

Yagyuu has to admit that their timetable _is_ punishing at the moment; tennis, school, tennis, cram school, home, sleep, then starting all over again the next morning. The weekends are set aside for catching up on homework, getting in some sleep and then extra study and practise. When they can schedule any around family obligations. Yagyuu keeps desperately longing for Nationals to be over, and they're not even at the prefecturals yet.

This schedule is, frankly, not doing wonders for their relationship either. On the one hand, they see each other all the time, and they're getting to spend most nights together -- usually at Yagyuu's house, since it's a lot closer to the cram school than Niou's house. On the other hand, they're almost always too tired to manage anything resembling intimacy and they've also had a number of stupid, pointless arguments that made Yagyuu want to throw in the towel on the whole thing. On more than one occasion, Niou has actually slept on the futon.

Thankfully, so far they've both always woken up the next morning and felt stupid about whatever had prompted the argument this time -- tennis, or homework, or not quite making it to the bus back from cram school in time and having to walk partway -- but it can't be healthy for them to fight so much.

Tonight, though, they haven't fought, and Niou seems in a good mood, and while Yagyuu is tired it's not as bone-tired as he has been some evenings. Niou is halfway through unbuttoning his shirt when Yagyuu takes over the task, and he kisses Yagyuu with enough surprised passion that Yagyuu quickly wishes they weren't in a quiet house with his parents only two doors away. It restricts their options a lot; they rather hurriedly jerk each other off, muffling their noises as best as they can with hands and pillows.

Niou stretches out sleepily against his side afterwards. "Much better."

"It's been a while, hasn't it?"

"Too long. I wish we had somewhere private we could go. Ooh, my parents are going out on Thursday evening; we could ditch practise. It'd totally be worth the extra laps later."

"Niou-kun, you know that's not a good idea. We'd still have to get to cram school afterwards, anyway."

Niou sighs. "Damn this whole responsibility thing. Hey, can I kidnap you this Saturday instead, then?"

"For sex?"

"Ha," Niou sniggers. "I want to go to Tokyo."

"I can ask my family. Any particular reason?"

"Shopping, mostly. I dunno, it'd be nice to hang out with you without any specific stuff to do."

That Saturday, after class, they head into Tokyo, and Niou leads him out into Shinjuku.

Yagyuu's always sort of thought of the whole area as touristy and fashionable, but after Niou drags him to Ni-chōme he suspects he's going to be thinking of it a bit differently -- he keeps spotting places which are catering towards men who like men. It's not brazen -- not in daylight, anyway -- but there's a lot of signage about men being welcome above pictures of smiling hosts and butlers. Niou and Yagyuu are actually attracting a few speculative looks from some of the guys soliciting customers outside those clubs. Perhaps those men are just trying to tell if they have money to spend, but frankly: some of the looks are verging on leering. Yagyuu's sort of relieved when Niou grabs his hand possessively. It crosses his mind that he hasn't seen any other couples holding hands, but it's still a comfort. Yagyuu tightens his grip around Niou's fingers and tries to ignore everyone else.

"Okay, my bad," Niou mutters after they walk about a block. "I thought this place would feel more... comforting? More safe?"

"More like we belonged?" Yagyuu asks.

"Maybe." Niou shrugs. "It feels a bit too separate, is all. Like segregating the homos out into their own space. I dunno."

Yagyuu thinks Niou's missing the point of it; this would be exactly what you'd want if you were single and into other guys and didn't know anyone else who was. This is somewhere you could go to meet men who would expect you to be interested in them, rather than being horrified. As part of a couple though, he suspects that this environment is a bit redundant for him and for Niou.

They go into a cafe and order drinks, and Yagyuu spots, with some relief, other people who are probably couples and who _look_ like they're okay with other people knowing. The two women in the corner look like they could be on a date; there's lots of blushing and giggling going on. The two older guys at the table by the window keep tangling their feet together meaningfully, though their body language above the table is pretty neutral.

Niou takes his hand again across their table; Yagyuu has a moment of vague concern that this isn't appropriate even in here before he decides he doesn't actually care.

"So," says Niou. "Kogakuin and Jikei are both walkable from here. You want to go take a look?"

"Hmm, not particularly. If you want to, we can. But I thought you had shopping you wanted to do?"

"Just clothes." Niou fiddles with his straw. "It's not important though. Um. There are love hotels around here, did you notice?"

"Hmm." Yagyuu isn't quite sure that's the invitation it could be; he'd expect Niou to be more direct about these things. "I noticed."

"The ones around here would be okay with two guys renting a room. I know it's a bit tacky."

Niou still seems not to be sure he wants to ask Yagyuu the obvious question, and Yagyuu takes a moment to work out why. "Wait, are you embarrassed to ask me to visit one?"

"A bit. It's... I don't want you to think I'm a total horndog or something. It's just that we never have the chance to have time to ourselves now, and I really miss it."

Yagyuu blinks, and then he cracks up. He can't help it; Niou's being ridiculous.

"What?"

"You think I haven't missed it too? Come on, let's go get a room somewhere."

Niou's answering grin is a delightful sight, and Yagyuu wonders again if he's becoming hopelessly lovestruck.

There are lots of options, once they actually try to choose. They pick, because it looks clean and basic, a 'couples hotel' as the first choice to try, and quickly leave when they see a middle-aged male couple in the entranceway who wink at them conspiratorially. They're probably just being encouraging but it feels creepy; Yagyuu doesn't think he can deal with anyone seeing them actually rent a room for sex.

Their second choice is a 'leisure hotel'; this one has a deserted entranceway and Niou feeds money into the machine on the wall until a key is dispensed. There are lots of weird options for rooms -- themes and weird names -- but Yagyuu lets Niou pick whatever he wants, since he's paying. The room they end up with is actually nothing special; it looks pretty much like a normal hotel room, to Yagyuu's relief. There's a TV and karaoke machine, and a western-style double bed, and a small bathroom through a door in the corner.

Niou sits cautiously on the bed. "Well."

Yagyuu sits next to him. "Three hours. You want to take a shower? We've plenty of time."

Niou's answer is just to kiss him, rather deeply, and somehow they stumble into the shower together to clean up. It's rather stimulating; Niou takes the lube into the shower room and the only reason they don't actually have sex in the shower is because he forgot to also bring the condoms.

They fall onto the bed, dripping wet; they're both already pretty far gone by then so Yagyuu has no objections when Niou straddles him and rides him to a rather swift mutual climax.

They throw the damp blankets onto the floor afterwards, and sprawl out on the bare mattress; having a bed this wide is a pretty nice luxury.

"It's stupid how much I needed that," says Niou after a bit. "I mean, really needed."

"I did too. And you'd better be willing to do that again in the next hour or two; I don't think it's going to be enough to keep me going for another few weeks otherwise."

Niou sighs, and then shuffles across the bed to press up against Yagyuu's side. "Yeah. I think I'd be okay if not for the early practises."

"I think it's going to get worse; Our captain's already tenser than a wound spring and we're not even to prefecturals yet."

"Maybe he'll relax a bit after we win them?"

"Possibly."

"If not, I say we get him laid. Maybe we can get Sanada drunk enough to actually admit he's totally smitten with him."

"Mm. Though I genuinely think Yukimura-kun's involved with Yanagi-kun somehow, at the moment."

"So he's this bad and he _is_ getting laid? Poor buchou."

Yagyuu shrugs. "Do you think it's going to be too much, this year? It's rather late to quit the team now."

"Nah, we'll manage." Niou smiles brightly at Yagyuu. "Just keep reminding me why we're doing this."

Yagyuu slides his hand down Niou's back, and pulls Niou against him. "I can do that."

They've got the better part of two hours left, and the karaoke machine isn't really the most appealing option. Niou seems to decide that the way to use it up is to be a complete tease; by the time he actually enters Yagyuu, Yagyuu feels like he's been on the brink of orgasm for ages.

It doesn't take long from there before Yagyuu is on his back with Niou rocking deeply and slowly inside him, Niou's clever fingers wrapped around his cock. It doesn't take long for either of them to come: the privacy makes them both uninhibited about noise, and Yagyuu keeps underestimating how much of a turn-on hearing Niou during sex is.

They lie on the bed for a while trying to catch their breath, afterwards.

"Next time you want to invite me to a love hotel," says Yagyuu, lightly, "Just _ask_ , before the sexual tension kills us both."

Niou chuckles, and kisses him again.

They leave the room with just a few minutes to spare on the clock; Yagyuu feels a bit guilty about the still-damp blankets but Niou points out that the cleaning staff have almost certainly seen worse. Back on the streets, Niou stretches and declares that they should probably go somewhere he can at least claim to have looked at clothes.

To Yagyuu's surprise, Niou seems really vague on what he wants to buy; he realises after a while that the love hotel visit was probably the entire purpose of this trip. It's an odd thought. He's a bit touched by how awkward Niou was about it, really. He reaches out and takes Niou's hand again, as they wander through Harajuku; Niou gives him a very startled look in response.

"Thinking sentimental things," Yagyuu says, in response, and Niou grins. "Tell you later."

"Interesting." Niou waves his free hand vaguely. "You know, we could be spotted like this; anyone from the Kantou teams could be here."

"They _could_ have been in Ni-Chome, too."

"Yeah, but if they were then they'd probably keep it quiet."

Yagyuu shrugs, and then tugs on Niou's arm so he is pulled closer. "Right now, do you care?"

"No, not really." Niou grins again, and tugs him towards a clothes store with fashions that make Yagyuu's eyes want to scream at the combinations of colours. "Come on, you can pick something to steal from my wardrobe next time you visit."

It seems unlikely, considering. Yagyuu snorts, and follows Niou in anyway.


	21. Niou

Niou glares across the net, weighing up his opponent's energy levels. It's an absurdly warm day and this solo match has been going on for far longer than reasonable considering that it's only the prefecturals. His opponent isn't even from a seeded team, he's just a random unexpected talent from an otherwise unremarkable school.

He'd been reasonably grumpy about playing solo today. Still, after Yanagi's little dig about jealousy, it's probably wise to bite his tongue about not playing with Yagyuu for now.

This guy he's playing -- something-yama, Niou honestly wasn't paying much attention -- isn't quite good enough to be a challenge, just good enough to make the match drag out. But this guy isn't used to the kind of training regimes that a team like Rikkai goes through. His stamina isn't going to last much longer, if Niou is any judge. Niou bounces the ball just once before serving, fast enough to make his opponent jump backwards in shock and completely fail to return the serve.

They change ends, and Niou serves again, another fast shot. He's bored of this match; the sooner it's over with, the better. Unfortunately, his opponent lucks out; he returns the serve powerfully and then a sudden flash of reflected light from somewhere in the bleachers makes Niou glance sideways for a moment. It's a dumb idea to stop watching the ball even for a split-second during a rally; Niou takes a fast-moving ball right in the temple.

When he opens his eyes, it's to see a blurry Yagyuu frowning at him in concern. He's been moved to one side on the court -- he's propped up against something. Yagyuu appears to be holding his head up by the chin, and Niou immediately tries to shake his head to get him to let go.

Yagyuu's grip tightens. "Don't do that, Niou-kun. You have a concussion."

Niou blinks, trying to clear his vision a little. It works, and he can suddenly see a hazy Yukimura behind Yagyuu.

"Do we need him to go to the hospital?"

"Yes," says Yagyuu tightly, as Niou says, "no."

Niou glares at Yagyuu, or at least attempts to. It's surprisingly hard to glare when your eyes don't want to focus properly.

"I can finish the match, I'll be fine."

Yagyuu and Yukimura exchange a look which Niou can't see well enough to decipher, and then Niou feels a heavy hand land on his shoulder.

"Forfeit," says Sanada, with a sigh. "We don't need this match."

Niou sighs, and nods. Or tries to, at least, but Yagyuu's grip on his jaw is rather too solid to allow the movement. "Fine," he says instead.

"I'll get him to the hospital," says Yagyuu. "Can you stand, Niou-kun? Try to keep your head as still as you can."

Niou tries to haul himself up, using Yagyuu and Sanada as support, and gets to his feet for about three seconds before everything goes sort of liquid again and he clutches at Yagyuu in horror. Yagyuu helps him sit on what feels like the coach's bench, and holds his head up for him again. Someone hands Niou an ice-cold towel, and Yagyuu has to actually lift Niou's hand up before Niou thinks to press it against the painful bit of his face.

"Akaya, go get ready for your match," says Yukimura, and that's the cue for everyone else to back off; Niou is about to bat Yagyuu's hands -- both back on his jaw -- away again when Yagyuu gives him a distinctly _don't you dare_ look.

"You're going to have a dreadful bruise, you realise," Yagyuu says, sounding rather calmer than Niou thinks he probably is.

"Think I can blame Sanada somehow?"

"Possibly." Yagyuu takes one hand away, and makes a gesture to one side that Niou can't quite track with his head held still like this. "How's your vision?"

"Blurry. Hurts if I try to focus."

"Hopefully you've not gotten yourself too damaged. You should have been paying better attention, you idiot."

"Ah, c'mon, you've hit worse at our opponents before; never did them much harm. I'll be fine."

"If they'd been unconscious like you, I'd be advising them to forfeit too. If you still can't walk in ten minutes or so, I'll get us taken to the hospital."

Niou sighs. "My own doubles partner, mothering me in public."

"Not your doubles partner today," says Yagyuu, and Niou's vision is just clear enough that he can see that Yagyuu wasn't exactly delighted about that arrangement either. It's comforting, at least, to know Niou's not the only one biting his tongue about the doubles setup.

Niou sighs, and gives up. He lets Yagyuu hold up his head for him until the point where he's asked to try standing up again. He manages that, at least, but nothing feels steady and so Yagyuu demands that they get taken to the hospital by car.

The doctor there shines a light in his eyes and checks his head a bit -- and it's stupidly painful to have his temple poked at -- while giving him a totally unnecessary lecture on paying attention when playing a dangerous sport. Niou puts up with the whole thing because he can feel Yagyuu's grip getting tighter and tighter around his arm. Eventually the doctor says that Niou doesn't appear to have cracked his skull, that he seems to have been lucky, and that if Niou gets any one of a number of symptoms then he should let the doctor know and they'll schedule a scan of some sort to check for 'trauma to the brain'. In the meantime, no tennis or exercise until the next day, and none at all if he has headaches or nausea the next day.

They're nearly out of the hospital before Yagyuu relaxes his grip and lets go of Niou's free arm. Niou isn't quite sure what to say; Yagyuu seems genuinely pissed off, and Niou can't tell if the anger's directed at him or the doctor or his tennis opponent or what.

"I should get some cigarettes," is the gambit he settles on, once they're outside the hospital, still holding the cooling pack up to his head. "Remind me to buy a pack."

Yagyuu's expression goes from thunderous to completely surprised, and he stops walking. "You don't smoke."

"I know."

"You tried it and said it tasted vile."

"I know. I still want to buy some. Maybe it's the brain damage."

Yagyuu scowls. "Don't even joke about that."

"Fine, fine." Niou stretches, and drapes his arm over Yagyuu's shoulders. "I just want some to have in my bag. Need to rebel more, keep up my image, y'know."

"Ah yes." They start walking again. "I think I'd prefer you find a less repulsive way to show off your nonconformity."

"I'm not going to _smoke_ them."

Yagyuu snorts. "It's not a good idea anyway. I admit, I'm surprised it's taken you this long to feel itchy about your reputation, but still -- what if your mother finds them? Or the school? Or, come to that, Yukimura-kun?"

Niou sighs, wistfully. It's a reasonable point; they can't afford to annoy their parents or the school given all the compromising and scheduling and accommodating that's going on for the sake of their one-year-plan. Yukimura would hopefully just scold him, but there's a chance he might get annoyed enough to assign extra practise or something.

"I know, you hate feeling like a _good_ boy."

"It's not just that. I just worry that my sudden model student bit is going to make our classmates suspicious."

"It's only going to be for a year, not even that now. Tell anyone who gets curious that you're playing a long con."

Niou laughs, wondering which of his crime novels Yagyuu's been picking phrases out from for this conversation. "Yeah, maybe."

The matches are nearly done when they get back; Niou might have forfeited his match but thankfully their baby demon won his match so they're through to the next round. Yanagi informs them that Niou will be sitting out the matches against their next opponents that afternoon -- Yukimura's re-ordered the playlists to that effect -- but Niou'll be back to playing the next day unless there's a reason to keep him off.

Niou sulks faintly all through the doubles 2 matches in the afternoon -- Akaya is teamed with Marui, which looks like a pretty awful pairing in Niou's opinion, even if they win without too much hassle -- but as soon as doubles 1 starts up he's too fascinated to be annoyed by being left out. Yukimura and Yanagi are playing doubles, and they are pretty spectacular as a pair, all effortless calculation and instinct and precision. Niou _thinks_ that this exciting new pairing would still lose against Yagyuu and himself on their best form, but it'd be a very tough match.

It's pretty sexy tennis. He shares a quick wry grin with Yagyuu, who looks similarly impressed by the sight, and then he spots the expression on Sanada's face. He looks _fond_ and _proud_ and _longing_ all at once, and it's such an open, honest expression that Niou's kinda embarrassed for him. Whatever the hell is going on between Yukimura and Yanagi -- and there's clearly something new and furtive, even if Yukimura is denying it to his back teeth -- it must be doing weird things to Sanada and his friendship with them both. Niou could almost feel sorry for him, but then Sanada grins exultantly at a particularly elegant drop volley from Yanagi and Niou decides that Sanada is coping just fine. Good for him.

Jackal's singles 3 match is pretty much a snoozefest, by contrast. Niou spends it quietly speculating with Yagyuu about how likely it is that Yukimura will play doubles again before Nationals -- Yagyuu thinks it'll be their surprise tactic there and it won't be tried publically again before that point, but Niou has a feeling they'll play around with it in the Regionals -- maybe Yukimura and Sanada will play as a doubles pair at some point too, that'd be worth seeing -- and then they'll drop the Yukimura-doubles idea entirely for Nationals since their opponents will be expecting it. They argue idly until Jackal finishes demolishing his opponent, and then line up to dutifully shake hands with the losing team.

Their next match is scheduled for the next afternoon; Yagyuu's playing with Jackal and Niou's with Kirihara. Marui's in singles for once; he's insufferably whiny that he's playing alone. Niou is sick of this constant chopping and changing too, even if he can see the point of trying all these combinations out _now_ rather than later.

Yagyuu's staying over at Niou's this evening -- they're missing cram school but even Yagyuu's father agrees that there's little point in them trying to attend during tournament week, given how unpredictable their schedules become. They have what amounts to a whole free evening, for once. Which Yagyuu _still_ wants to spend studying. Niou would be insulted by the thought, but the last time he got pissed over Yagyuu prioritising study, Yagyuu had scathingly reminded him that this amount of academic pressure had been Niou's idea in the first place, and it was because Niou wasn't willing to wait an extra year for them to be living together, and so shouldn't he be working towards that history test instead of getting distracted?

Yagyuu was right, and Niou does agree that it'd be stupid to mess up the plan now, but... well, they _genuinely_ could blow off school-work without much impact on anything at the moment. Rikkai's teachers always go easy on the workload for the tennis team during tournament weeks, so there's not much school homework to be fretting over. They're ahead of the cram school workload. They are, in fact, doing rather better with _everything_ than Niou'd expected to be doing by this point, considering how much time is being sunk into tennis.

They'll both be staying over at Sanada's place the next night, and then the night after that -- the day before the Prefectural finals -- the whole team is staying in a hotel in Yokohama to be fresh and prompt for their upcoming matches. That means dormitory style sleeping both nights, and that means absolutely _zero_ chance to be alone. And on the last day, there's the obligatory team celebration dinner and probably a sleepover with others, and then they both have family plans on the weekend.

Basically it's going to be _ages_ , and Niou think he may well be horny enough by the time next Monday comes around that he'll be at serious risk of mauling Yagyuu in the showers after practise.

And, well, Niou is pretty keenly aware that his sister _knows_ about them and is right next door, but she's got music playing in her room at the moment, and that combined with his trusty door-lock means that right now is as 'safe' and 'private' as they're going to get.

Yagyuu doesn't even look up when Niou locks the door, but Niou can see him tense as if expecting Niou to jump him. Which means he won't be cool with Niou doing that, unless he changes his mind about his studying first. Damn. Niou's face is still kinda swollen, too, so he's not sure he can pull off either a come-hither look or a forlorn don't-you-want-me look. His chances of seducing his boyfriend don't seem great.

Niou flops onto the bed with his textbooks. He lies there, idly flicking through the pages of his coursebooks, wondering what actually gets Yagyuu's libido ticking. Things like nudity and makeouts and touching, sure, but those fall under 'obvious' and that's not what he's interested in. Niou figures that everyone has at least one non-sex thing that has more _impact_ than it should. Niou has a few. A lot of Yagyuu's little gestures and habits give him a bit of a frisson these day, for instance. Mostly that's just associating sex and Yagyuu with each other so much now, but Niou thinks maybe he's always felt that little shiver when Yagyuu does his stern glasses-flashing thing. Hard to tell now. Niou turns over some of his own little list of stimulating things in his head. Really great yakiniku in dark little restaurants nobody else seems to know about. The feel of sun-warmed concrete on his bare back. Watching people lie politely to authority figures. Not sexy things really, but still... kinda hot, somehow.

Yagyuu's list -- from what Niou's observed -- seems to include understanding really complicated English, lying politely to authority figures, figuring out those murder mystery novels of his, and -- and this one Niou's reasonably certain about -- the idea of Niou dressed up in really smart clothes. Though not when Niou's actually dressed as Yagyuu, Niou suspects, maybe since that's technically not about _Niou_ looking neat.

Niou glances down at what he changed into after his shower -- artfully torn jeans and an anime t-shirt Akaya gave him last year -- and thinks about how beaten-up his face probably looks right now, and concludes that getting dressed up is a non-starter. His English is miles behind Yagyuu's level and even Niou can't manufacture a murder mystery on short notice. He stretches luxuriously as one last test, making sure his t-shirt rides up enough to show a little skin. Yagyuu doesn't glance over, and that kind of thing usually catches his eye, so he's _really_ determined to ignore any temptation Niou throws at him. Oh well. Maybe Niou should just go for the direct approach after all. He rubs at his injury cautiously, and hisses at the sting of pain.

Yagyuu looks up at that. "Don't touch it, Niou-kun."

"How am I meant to tell if it's stopped hurting unless I test it?" 

Yagyuu sighs. "Give it a few days. How is it feeling, anyway?"

"Fine, if I'm not touching it."

"No nausea, dizziness, blurry vision?"

Niou shrugs -- it's fine, really -- and says wryly, "I'm having trouble focusing on economics when there's a hot guy in my room, but that's nothing new."

That makes the corners of Yagyuu's mouth twist up in that way they do when he's trying not to smile, and provoking that particular expression is definitely on Niou's little thrill list. Yagyuu glances back down at his schoolwork, and Niou can see Yagyuu's internal debate start up.

"S'okay, you're right, we need to study," he says. 

He doesn't mean it, and Yagyuu knows that, but saying it makes Yagyuu's mouth do that not-quite-a-smile again. Niou flops back onto the bed, lifts up the economics textbook as if determined to read it and grins hopefully.

Sure enough, Yagyuu pulls the book from his hands a minute or so later. "You're a terrible, terrible person, Niou-kun."

"Ah, you'll forgive me," says Niou, as Yagyuu brushes the hair gently away from his temple. "I'm injured, and all."

Yagyuu's fingers trace very, very lightly over Niou's cheek, as if he's testing where the edge of Niou's future bruise will be. It's not quite ticklish, not quite painful, and Niou bats his hand away reflexively. Yagyuu frowns. "Maybe I shouldn't take advantage of a sick person."

Niou reaches up and hauls Yagyuu down for a kiss. It actually does make his face ache a little, but Niou ignores that because if Yagyuu goes into concerned doctor mode then Niou really won't get any action at all tonight. Yagyuu seems, thankfully, amused and not irritated that Niou has tempted him away from his books.

Not that Niou is going to get precisely what he'd like this evening, of course. He'd like Yagyuu to screw him, if he's honest, and Yagyuu always refuses to consider having actual sex if there's anyone else in the house. Niou grumbled a bit when they first discussed it but secretly he agrees with Yagyuu: it's too risky, given that neither of them seem to be able to keep very quiet. It's a shame: Niou has gotten kind of addicted to the way Yagyuu sort of _dissolves_ into it when they have sex, either way around; seeing Yagyuu so willing and raw makes Niou feels all kinds of privileged.

Yagyuu pokes him in the shoulder later, after they've gotten their breath back and Niou's feeling lazy and sated, sprawling against Yagyuu's side. "Don't fall asleep."

"Mmm, 'kay."

"Seriously. Or at least get dressed before you do. I'm not explaining to your mother why you're naked."

Niou sighs, and rolls onto his back. "I cannot _wait_ until we have our own place."

"Because then clothes will be optional?"

"Unless we have guests, I think I might ban them entirely."


	22. Yukimura

Prefecturals is an easy sweep for Rikkai.

Admittedly, as Renji insists on pointing out, it would have been even more straightforward if Yukimura hadn't insisted on implementing this change-around plan for every round. But Yukimura has had enough of being surprised by schools who think they can lay traps; everyone on this team has been playing on the school circuits long enough that there's a lot of data there to be assessed. Being unpredictable is going to be useful; if people can't predict which team members will be in which roles, they can't focus their attempts on taking down certain key people in the games.

He knows it shocked most of the team to see him and Renji play doubles -- they'd carefully avoided practising it in front of them, and it was totally worth the hassle. He can't _wait_ for their faces when he plays with Sanada. That's all going to have to wait until closer to Regionals, though; right now as a captain he needs to allow them all to slack off a little. Renji and Sanada were both pretty blunt about that, and he did promise to listen, after all.

Sanada has arranged a dinner for the whole team in Yokohama to celebrate their victory; he's even printed off bus timetables for afterwards, since the school bus driver won't stay out as late as they want. Since Yukimura's place is near the end of the bus route, the three of them will stay there that evening, and Yukimura's checked with his parents to make sure that he can allow any -- or all -- of the rest of the team to crash at his place, on the floor, if it turns out to be necessary. Though he thinks privately that, if Niou and Yagyuu need somewhere to stay, he'd rather raid his own savings and put them in a hotel somewhere than have them in his house together overnight. They've spent half of today casting meaningful looks at each other, much like they have been the previous couple of nights. Yukimura really hopes that, to outsiders, it looks like they're planning some trick or scheme together. To him it looks pretty much exactly like they're using that doubles telepathy trick to talk about sex.

Actually, Yukimura doesn't think he'd mind them _kissing_ in his house, as long as they were discreet. It's just that, well, who knows how restrained they'd be once they started. Something in the back of his head objects to the idea of any of his friends having sex in his house before he gets around to it himself.

The dinner is in a place that does big dishes of barbecued meats, in deference to the majority of the team's food preferences. Pretty much everyone seems to find something they want to try; Renji wrinkles his nose at the options and orders the one unmeaty dish, but doesn't complain otherwise. It's actually a rather low-key celebration, as the team are all pretty relaxed about their victory. They're not quite complacent, thinks Yukimura with satisfaction -- they all know it'll get harder from here on -- but they massively outclassed their opponents at this tournament, and victory wasn't hard-earned.

Akaya grills Marui and Jackal fairly thoroughly on their respective girlfriends, to everyone else's amusement; Yukimura hadn't really realised that Jackal was still _involved_ with some girl back in Brazil. Presumably he really likes her, if he's kept the relationship going long-distance. He's pretty vague with his answers to Akaya, though, in a way that catches Yukimura's interest. Marui, by contrast, seems utterly smitten with the girl he's dating, and he chatters away enthusiastically in answer to Akaya's questions.

Eventually it reaches the point where Yukimura decides they've probably all heard enough, and he cuts across Marui's descriptions of the date he's going to take his girlfriend on this weekend to ask Akaya if he has met a girl he's thinking of asking out yet.

To his amusement, Akaya flushes distinctly pink. "No, no, not really."

"Oho, our little baby's got a crush, I bet," and Niou's grin is sharp enough that Yukimura rather thinks he should intervene before his teammates begin interrogating the poor boy.

He smiles cheerfully at Akaya, before the teasing can begin. "Looks like it. With any luck, he'll do better than the rest of us did with girls last year."

Niou gives him a faintly incredulous look, and then his smile sharpens again. "Pfft, yeah, I guess none of us managed to find girls we wanted to hang onto."

Akaya actually laughs at that, though he still looks sort of embarrassed. "I might still beat you to having a girlfriend, eh buchou?"

Yukimura laughs. "Everyone else already has. Is it going to be much of a victory?"

"Of course. I never get to beat you at _anything_ normally."

Marui leans across and steals one of the remaining fries from Yukimura's plate. "So, who is she, then?"

"She's in my class, and she's funny, and I'm not telling you any more than that."

Yukimura smiles. It's weird to think of Akaya even noticing girls, but it is also vaguely a relief. "Good plan. You'll only get dreadful advice from this lot."

Marui sniffs. "Hey, I have a girlfriend."

"And you got turned down by -- how many?" Niou turns to Renji for a number.

"Fourteen," says Renji. "That I know of."

" _At least_ fourteen girls before you got one."

"That just means I finally perfected my technique," says Marui airily, and at that point Yukimura tunes out of the conversation in favour of thinking about his art project. Composing images of Renji and Sanada together is absurdly easy, he thinks -- they contrast and complement each other, and it's easy to form pleasing visuals as a result. But he can't seem to include himself without unbalancing things. He itches to get out his sketchbook and play around with tableaux arrangements again, but it would be a bit rude.

He tunes back in, as Sanada has just nudged his knee pointedly. "Hmm?"

"I asked, Buchou, there's no girl you like either?"

"Ah, Akaya, if there was, I wouldn't tell. No dating, no point."

"It sucks that you're not allowed."

Yagyuu leans back in his chair and says with impressive casualness, "Honestly, Kirihara-kun, nor am I this year."

"What, why?" Kirihara looks wide-eyed with confusion for a moment. "Oh, because you're doing that early university thing?"

"Indeed." Yagyuu gives Niou a pointed look, and Niou sighs heavily.

"Yeah, my folks said the same thing. No girlfriends this year. Kinda sucks, but it's the price I gotta pay for getting to university early so I'll deal."

It's an elegant excuse for no girls, Yukimura supposes, and it might even be true. He doubts either set of parents meant their son should keep so precisely to the letter and not the spirit, though.

Marui waves his spoon in the air, as if dismissing Niou's grumbles. "Honestly, why are you so keen on getting there anyway?"

Niou blinks as if completely baffled that the question needs to be asked, and then he shrugs. "Because high school is _boring_."

Marui looks unconvinced. Yagyuu pushes his glasses up his nose and leans forward. "Boredom aside, Marui-kun, the truth is that I'd like more independence and less supervision in my life. University means I can legitimately move out of my parents' house."

"That does sound good. If I wasn't so lazy about schoolwork I'd be tempted too," says Yukimura, because it's true: he loves his parents but it's suffocating sometimes.

Kirihara shrugs. "I like living with my parents. They're pretty nice."

The rest of them look at him, amused, and he blushes. "I know that's not cool, but it's true. I'm thinking of staying on at Rikkai for university so I don't have to move away."

That distracts everyone for a while from the topic of romance, at least, while they all discuss universities. It's a little strange hearing Niou and Yagyuu talk about the places they're applying to and why, when most of the rest of them still have such unformed plans. Renji is the exception -- he's still firm about his top 3 choices, and since they're all Tokyo-area he's assured by Niou and Yagyuu that they'll show him around the city. Yukimura gets away with being vague about his future plans; he suspects everyone knows he's going to be chasing tennis if he possibly can.

They all pile onto a bus homewards, and the combination of being well-fed and warm after a day of exercise leads, inevitably, to most of the team falling asleep. Jackal's the first to go, about five minutes after getting on the bus; Marui holds up a hand to shush Akaya when he notices and the rest of the team pull amused faces and lapse into whispers.

Yukimura dozes. He has odd, disjointed dreams about the future, which disorient him somewhat, and he wakes up with a start to find that the only only team member left awake is Yagyuu, reading quietly. Niou -- inevitably, thinks Yukimura -- has fallen asleep rather cosily against Yagyuu's side, but then again Yukimura fell asleep with his head pillowed on Sanada's shoulder so hopefully nobody's in a mood to look for subtext today.

Yagyuu looks up from his textbook as Yukimura yawns and peels himself off Sanada's side. "Yukimura-kun?"

"Where are we?"

Yagyuu looks out of the window. "About twenty minutes until my stop, I think."

"Is Niou staying with you?"

"Of course, and so is Kirihara-kun." At Yukimura's raised eyebrow, Yagyuu shrugs. "If you'd really rather he sleep on your floor, be my guest."

"Not especially, I just thought it might be inconvenient for you."

"It's perfectly fine. We'll do our best not to traumatise him too much." Yagyuu closes his book and glances at Niou, and his expression is -- just for a moment -- totally unguarded, with a real depth of fondness and possessiveness in the smile he wears. Yukimura smothers down a smile of his own, as Yagyuu looks back up and says, "there's no practise tomorrow, correct?"

"Nope, and no practise Monday either. Back to normal on Tuesday, though."

Yagyuu nods, and then gently elbows Niou, who responds by murmuring something and then presses up closer to Yagyuu in a way that makes Yukimura blush faintly, glad that the rest of the team are asleep. Yagyuu elbows him slightly harder, and then Niou comes awake all at once and suddenly he is upright and alert and Yukimura can scarcely believe he was draped so intimately over Yagyuu a moment earlier.

"Our stop?" Niou says, and then without waiting for a response leans past Yagyuu and across the aisle so he can poke Kirihara. "Hey, kiddo, time to move our butts."

He pitches his voice just loud enough for everyone to start waking up in response, and then there's a faint flurry of people checking that they have their bags and teasing one another gently as they get ready to leave, and soon enough it's just Yukimura, Sanada and Renji left.

The evening is warm and breezy as they walk from the bus stop to Yukimura's house, and there's something in the air that makes them all keep glancing at one another. After the third or fourth time Yukimura catches Sanada's eye, Renji laughs quietly and pulls them both into the shadow of the entry gate to a shrine, and then he carefully puts down his bags before kissing Sanada.

Sanada doesn't protest, which surprises Yukimura, but he does grab Yukimura's hand and pull him in with them, and then for a while there's a lot of rather gentle kissing and affectionate touching. The darkness feels protective and safe, and they've seen nobody else on foot since they turned off the main street.

"Mm," says Sanada quietly after a while, as Yukimura winds his arms around Renji's neck again. "We're going to get caught if we stay here."

"Yeah," says Yukimura, wistfully -- this moment feels precious, almost holy, and he doesn't really want it to end even if Sanada's right -- and Renji sighs heavily but nods too.

"I don't suppose your parents are going out tomorrow?" Renji asks Yukimura, as they compose themselves and leave the shrine.

"In the afternoon, I believe so."

"Would they mind you having visitors in their absence?"

"I think not, especially if you two conspire to leave your tennis bags at my house." Yukimura smiles. "They can't object if you've just dropped by to collect those."

Yukimura's mother has laid three futons out on their living area floor as if expecting Yukimura to have to bring at least one extra guest home. Yukimura spends almost a whole second considering his options, and then elects to sleep down there so he can be closer to Sanada and Renji. They sleep demurely, despite the proximity, and in the morning Renji quietly slides their tennis bags behind the door so they can be easily 'overlooked'.

That afternoon is blissful.

In the evening, Yukimura goes to Renji's house -- Sanada, unfortunately, has family plans he's unwilling to avoid in the evening -- and he sketches idly while Renji studies. It's peaceful and relaxing, and even after Renji's family leave -- first his mother, then his father, then his sister all head out -- it takes a while before it occurs to Yukimura that they're now alone and in private. In fact, it takes Renji gently pulling his sketchpad from his hands and kissing him.

He's gotten used to Sanada being part of this, and it feels weird to be kissing Renji without taking breaks to include Sanada, but -- he admits -- it's also kind of nice to focus and be focused on completely for once. They kiss for quite a while, and things naturally build up. Yukimura tries not to _push_ \-- no matter what Renji said before, Yukimura really doesn't want to think of himself as someone who pushes when it's not wanted -- but even so Renji seems pretty eager. To his surprise Renji actually strokes himself this time too, still kissing Yukimura languidly, until Yukimura spills shudderingly into Renji's hand. Renji doesn't bother to continue long after that, though; he just stops, without reaching climax. That's happened before, and Yukimura's decided not to feel offended or guilty because he figures it's to do with Renji's control issues and if it's _actually_ a problem then Renji will eventually talk to him about it. He fights down the urge to offer to try and help, and instead stretches along Renji's side languidly.

"Hnn," says Renji, after a few minutes. "I have a question."

"Asking me for favours when I'm all blissed-out is mean."

"Not that." Renji turns, so they're facing each other on the futon. "Are you happy?"

"Right now, absolutely."

"What if I asked you to have sex with me this evening?"

Yukimura blinks, and sits up. "Um. Isn't that, well. Uh. _Why_?"

Renji sits up too. "I'm tired of being scared of it, and I think it'll be less overwhelming with one than with both of you."

"But," and Yukimura can't think of a but for a moment, but then rallies. "But, okay, why now, and why me, and when you say _sex_ what do you mean, and--"

"Because you'd be more upset about sex without you than Genichirou will be, honestly. And, well, I do mean actual penetrative sex, Seiichi, and if you mean which way around then I don't know. They're both frightening as far as I'm concerned."

Yukimura stares at him. "And you want us to do this today? Now?"

"Please."

Yukimura looks down at himself. "Well, if you want me to be, um, active, then you might have to wait a little while. And we'll need things, right?"

"There are condoms in my sister's room, I think, and I've lotion and similar. From what I've read, that should be fine."

"Well." Yukimura can't say he'd imagined things going like this -- he'd always assumed his first time would be a heat-of-the-moment, impulsive choice -- but then again it's _Renji_. Nothing's ever quite as expected with him. "Yes, then. I'll go, er, clean up."

"Unh," he says after his shower and a bit of thought on the matter, as he sinks back onto the futon next to Renji. "Can we just, um, get to it?"

"Everything I've read seems to say that the more foreplay--"

"Renji, please." Yukimura stretches out on his front, willing himself to relax. "The longer we take worrying about it, the tenser I'll get. And the more jumpy you'll be. We can take our time more in future."

Renji frowns at him, but nods. It takes a bit of encouragement for him to get it up again; nerves, thinks Yukimura, and is even more certain that too much delay will be counter-productive.

"Seiichi, if I hurt you, I'm--"

"Shut up, I'm not made of glass."

It hurts, sort of, but not in the way Yukimura expected. Renji is slow -- too slow, too careful, really -- and Yukimura wants to snap at him for being so goddamned cautious, but then he glances at Renji's face and sees how utterly confused Renji looks and suddenly everything else is unimportant.

"You okay?" he asks, over his shoulder, as gently as he can.

Renji blinks, and then gives him a really weird half-smile. "I'm supposed to ask you that. I'm just -- it feels good?"

Yukimura shrugs, and then Renji laughs and Yukimura can feel that where they're joined, and that _does_ feel good.

"Oh," he says, and Renji looks puzzled. "It feels better when you move."

Renji looks like he's considering that, and then he pulls Yukimura upright so that Yukimura is, essentially, sitting on Renji's lap, held in place by Renji's arms around his chest. "Can you do the moving?"

It feels precarious, like Renji is going to slide out of him at any moment, but Yukimura finds that yes, he can indeed move for them both. Renji slides his hands up Yukimura's arms, pulling them _up_ and then back. It makes sense immediately; Yukimura locks his hands together behind Renji's neck for stability. The position arches Yukimura's back, and everything feels _deeper_ and more secure and _better_. Yukimura nearly bites his tongue, trying not to groan too loudly, because this is rather more overwhelming than he expected; sensation shudders through up through him and shorts out anything but the instinct to just keep moving.

And now Renji's letting Yukimura set the pace, he's become absurdly tactile. He presses hot, wet kisses against Yukimura's neck, and his hands roam Yukimura's chest and stomach for a while before he tangles one in Yukimura's hair and wraps the other around Yukimura's cock.

"Nnh," moans Yukimura encouragingly, rocking back and forth eagerly, because damn, however awkward it was at first, _now_ he's feeling utterly claimed and Renji feels really good moving inside him and he's going to come any moment now and then Renji's hands tighten and Renji gasps and then Renji's coming, thrusting hard into Yukimura and panting wordlessly into his hair.

Yukimura stills, as Renji holds him and catches his breath.

"Sorry," is the first thing Renji says, and Yukimura isn't sure why until Renji slides out of him, condom and all. He's about to ask if Renji's alright again, but then Renji pushes him down and _over_ and then, startlingly, gives Yukimura a blow-job that Yukimura nearly yelps in surprise at the unexpectedness of. It's clumsy and there's no real rhythm to Renji's motions but after all the stimulation it still isn't very long until Renji is fumbling for a tissue to spit inelegantly into.

"Sorry," says Yukimura, and then he laughs and Renji, wiping his mouth, also laughs.

"I think we're even."

"Mm." Yukimura stretches, every muscle in his body aching in the same pleasant way as they do after a really good tennis match. "Thank you."

"And you." Renji sits next to him, and hands him tissues, and they do what they can to clean up, and then Renji wraps the sheet around them both and hugs Yukimura to him.

Yukimura's not sure what to say. He wants to ask Renji if he liked it; he _wants_ to ask Renji a lot of things about what this means for the future. He wants to tell Renji that they should definitely try it again, because it was good for him; he wants to observe that maybe Renji shouldn't try bottoming until he's a lot happier about the control stuff; and he wants to ask what they should say to Sanada. Instead, he rests his head against Renji's arm, and sighs.

"I can hear you thinking, Seiichi. I didn't freak out, and you are wonderful, and I just need to process for a moment."

"I hope Sanada won't be annoyed with us."

"He'll understand." Renji combs his fingers through Yukimura's hair. "Well. He might not understand everything about today, but he'll understand why this was an exception."

"Good." Yukimura chuckles. "You know, I can work out _how_ we could all have sex at once, but given how intense that just was--"

"Yes. You and Genichirou might have to overcome your distaste for having me sit out and watch you, next time. Unless you'd rather watch?"

The image of Renji pushing Sanada down onto the futon drifts into Yukimura's imagination, and then is supplanted by the idea of Renji straddling Sanada and the two of them, kissing deeply, rising and falling slowly together. "Hnn. I could probably live with that."

Renji kisses the side of Yukimura's head, and pulls him close.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am very much not endorsing Renji's behaviour here, let it be known. This is not a good way to deal with what he's feeling, and Yukimura's not really thinking with the right part of his mind at this point.


	23. Yagyuu

Yagyuu is startled, on the Thursday after prefecturals, to realise that Niou hasn't made it to school. He sends a message -- just a brief _Where are you?_ \-- but by the afternoon it's clear that Niou is neither coming to class nor replying to his messages.

Yagyuu fights down his concern, and waits until he talks to Yukimura at the beginning of club time. He tells him that he doesn't know where Niou is and that he probably isn't coming to practise today.

"Oh." Yukimura squints at him, as if considering this. "Have you two had a fight?"

"No. He's not answering his phone."

"I'm guessing it's not sickness. Perhaps a family emergency?" Yukimura shakes his head. "Unless it's a good excuse, I'll have to assign him some sort of visible punishment, you know that."

"I know. But, I wondered, may I--"

"No, you may not go check up on him." Yukimura glances around, then pulls Yagyuu aside and murmurs, "Just in case it's about you. I'll go there myself, after practise."

Yagyuu nods, grimly. That's the fear going around and around in his head; Niou's parents have somehow found out about them, or guessed, and Niou's absence is because they've freaked out completely. If Yukimura's visit is ostensibly to scold Niou for missing practise, that's less likely to cause more chaos than Niou's _boyfriend_ suddenly turning up.

"Are you going to be any use today?" Yukimura's tone is solicitous, but threaded with irritation.

"I doubt it. I'm sorry, I shouldn't allow myself to be distracted by things like this."

"No, I'd prefer you be honest, but I can't let you skip out on practise either. I suppose you can oversee the first-year practises today instead."

The practise crawls by, and then Yagyuu has to wait for nearly an hour and a half until he gets a message from Yukimura. He's in cram school by that point, but thankfully it's a crowded class and he's able to reply from behind his books.

_His parents think he's been having sex with a girl._

_...why? and how would he have time?_

_They found condoms, I think? They think you've been covering for him while he skips out and gets laid, I suppose._

Yagyuu thinks about that for a moment. _Can't they check class attendance?_

_They're calling your cram school to do that. And your mother. I've already vouched for his attendance at club, and the school has probably verified his attendance there._

Yagyuu gives up, excuses himself to their tutor, and goes outside.

"Yukimura-buchou," he says when Yukimura answers, "if they confirm that he's been at all his classes, what then?"

"I really don't know. His mother was pretty abrupt and just asked if I was certain he'd been at all the practises and matches; Niou threw a note out of his window with the rest. I don't know anything else. I think they've confiscated his phone for now."

Yagyuu bites at his lip. "If they know he hasn't been cutting class, hasn't missed practise or cram school, and that he's been at my house when he says he has..."

"Yes, I know, they might start wondering when he's had enough time without you around. I don't know what Niou's told them. Maybe he's told them they're wrong. Maybe he's told them it was just once."

"Hm." Yagyuu thinks; if they search -- really thoroughly search -- Niou's room, there's at least one gay porn magazine in there. But it's massively outnumbered by girly stuff and could be there as a joke. The lube is excusable, too. Niou's pretty good at deleting browser history, and he wouldn't keep anything too obvious on his computer. Nothing _necessarily_ is going to make them think Niou's into guys, at least. But that's only a minor comfort; Niou's parents are clearly alarmed enough anyway.

Yukimura makes more soothing comments for a while, and then hangs up. Yagyuu heads back into class, but he's not paying much attention and by the time class ends he's totally lost track of what he's supposed to be studying.

His mother is waiting for him at home.

"Hiroshi," she says, "Why did I get a call from Niou-san asking if I could confirm that her son had been here when he said he had?"

Yagyuu put down his bag, carefully, and sighs. "She thinks he's been seeing a girl instead of studying."

"Oh." That makes his mother's expression do something subtle and conflicted, but Yagyuu is really too tired to think about that now. He's about to head upstairs, when she takes hold of his arm and smiles, wryly. "She doesn't know her son very well, does she?"

Yagyuu, startled, just stares at his mother. She pulls him towards the kitchen, and closes the door behind him.

"Sit," she says, not unkindly, and he does. She takes a seat opposite him, and rests her chin on her hand. "Hiroshi, I know he won't have been with a girl, for the same reason you wouldn't be."

Yagyuu tries not to flinch or look alarmed. "Oh?"

"Yes. I don't think your father has noticed, but then again, I'm the one that keeps finding Niou-kun's hair in your bed when you tell me he's sleeping on the futon." She reaches out a hand, and Yagyuu stares at it. "You're young, so perhaps this is just a phase you're going through. I hope it is, for your sake."

"I..." Yagyuu isn't quite sure what to say.

His mother sighs, her hand still extended towards him. "I've seen how you look at him sometimes, you understand? And if you think you're in love with him, then you'll continue to think that even if I interfere. I'm not willing to lose my son over something like that."

Yagyuu takes his mother's hand, and squeezes it gratefully. "I don't think it's a phase."

She just looks wistful, but nods. Yagyuu wonders for a moment; given her calmness, he'd wager a lot of money that she thinks the relationship is just romantic words and sexless embraces and is firmly ignoring the thought that there's anything more. He wishes he could let her continue to think that way.

"Mother," he says, trying to be as gentle as he can, "I don't wish to be vulgar, but Niou-san found some... private items in Niou-kun's room, things that he'd really only need to have if he had been, um, involved with someone. Sexually. And because such things could be used with a girl as well..."

His mother flushes and pulls her hand back, looking embarrassed. "It's gone that far, then?"

"I apologise, but she might ask you about those things."

She still looks flustered, but not quite angry, and that's better than he feared. "Alright. Thank you for being honest." She stands, slowly, and regards him for a long moment. "I suppose every mother has to face the idea that her son is growing up."

"Perhaps."

"I won't tell Niou-san about this. Or your father." Her expression sharpens, as if she's reached some internal conclusion. "You're too young, far too young to be… well, for any of this. And I'd think the same if Niou-kun was a girl."

Yagyuu looks down, conflicted. He knows his filial duty; if his mother tells him to break things off with Niou then he's obliged to do so. But he knows that for this, for Niou, he'd ignore that obligation. For Niou, he'd lie and cheat and do whatever it took. And he isn't going to _offer_ to end the relationship, even though that's what his mother would like.

"But I don't see how I can stop you. And you'll resent me forever if I try. I don't think I could live with that."

"Niou-kun is important to me, mother. Please don't ask me to give him up."

She purses her lips, then she sighs again. "If your father wouldn't start wondering why, I'd forbid you from having him in your room unsupervised. Try to bear that in mind."

Yagyuu stands up, and bows to her. "Thank you."

"Yes, well. Keep up your grades, or I'll reconsider keeping this to myself."

Yagyuu tries studying for a while, but then gives up and lies on his bed, staring at the ceiling. He's just told _his mother_ that he's been having sex with Niou. Her expression is going to haunt him for a long time, he thinks. Still, she didn't throw him out or yell or call him a pervert. It's distressing to have upset her like that, but it could have been so much worse.

His phone rings, and he snatches it up.

"Niou-kun?"

"Hey, Hiroshi. Uh, look, sorry I made you worry. I'll be back in school tomorrow. Early club practise and all."

"Yukimura-kun told me--"

"Yeah, mom grilled him a bit, and she called your mother too, I know. Apologise to Yagyuu-san for me, will you?"

"I told my mother about--"

"Ah, gotta go. We'll talk tomorrow, okay? Bring your notes from today, I'll need to catch up."

Niou hangs up, abruptly. Presumably his parents were in the room, or listening in on the call, or something, but if he's coming back to school then they must have ascertained that he was telling the truth about his whereabouts.

Niou is at early club practise the next day, but what with the practise and everyone milling around curiously and Niou having to repeat the excuse that he was ill the previous day, Yagyuu ends up having to wait until lunchtime before he can drag Niou up to the roof for a chat.

"What she found was old condom wrappers," Niou says, after they check that the roof is clear of anyone except the two of them. "Two of them, fallen down the back of my bed."

"Shit." That was worse than just finding unused condoms; it must have been obvious Niou had needed to use them, and in his parents' house too. Yagyuu tries to work out when they'd have been from, but no specific occasion comes to mind. Clearly, they've been too complacent for a while: when did they stop being so careful about hiding all the evidence?

"So yeah, they think I must have snuck a girl into my room."

Yagyuu slumps against the pipes on the wall, while Niou perches on the railings nearby. "So all that calling around yesterday?"

"My father decided I must have been skipping _something_ just to have the time, but now at least I'm off the hook for that. Still grounded unless it's studying or club business, though. I, uh." Niou looks a bit embarrassed. "I said there _was_ a girl, that you knew about her and that you didn't approve of her."

"I see." And in fact, Yagyuu _can_ see why Niou would say that; if Yagyuu disapproved of her then he wouldn't have been helping to sneak her into Niou's room.

"My mother might ask you to keep an eye on me for her. You're the sensible son, after all."

"Ah. Just to update you, _my_ mother knows about us sleeping together."

Niou nearly topples off the railings in surprise. "Shit, what?"

"She'd noticed that you always share my bed. Apparently she's suspected for a while that we've been rather more than just friends. After what Yukimura told me... it seemed best she hear the whole truth from me."

"Fucking hell. Is she angry?"

"She's not happy. But she won't tell your parents. She wanted to ban us from being alone in the house, but that would look suspicious, and my father _doesn't_ know."

"Mm. My sister knows too, did I tell you? But she's cool about it."

"At this point I'm wondering if we should just get a loudspeaker and start broadcasting it."

"Heh, maybe." Niou slides off the railings and sits down next to Yagyuu instead; it's just them up here today, and nobody can see them, but all Niou does is hold Yagyuu's hand. "How much more of this year do we have left?"

"Too long." Yagyuu closes his eyes and rests his head against the pipes behind them. "I want it to be over, Niou-kun. I'm tired of looking over our shoulders all the time."

There's a pause, and then Niou says, very quietly, "So do you think we should, uh, break it off until we move in together?"

That isn't what Yagyuu meant, not at all, but he turns the thought over for a moment, because dismissing it outright isn't going to satisfy Niou. "I don't think I can do that. How about you?"

"If there was nothing to find out, we wouldn't have to be so paranoid."

Yagyuu opens his eyes and turns his head to look Niou directly in the eyes. "Even if we broke up, I'd still be in love with you."

Niou, to Yagyuu's amusement, flushes very red in embarrassment. "Geez, what?"

"I know that's a big thing to say, but I mean it. And it's not something that'll diminish just because we're not sleeping together; I _want_ you, do you understand? I'd spend the rest of the year making up excuses for us to get back together early, or dreaming about us already being back together."

Niou is still very red. "Um. I suppose so."

"Especially since we'd still have to spend all our time together anyway. I don't think my self-control would last long."

Niou nods, and then stares at his knees for a while. "I love you too," he says, eventually, and Yagyuu's stomach does a delighted little flip-flop at that. "It's just, I hate the idea of you being miserable because of me, and if being with me makes you more miserable than being not-with-me would--"

"Trust me, it doesn't."

"Okay." Niou looks sideways at Yagyuu, and then nudges him. "You're right about self-control. I don't think I'd last long either."

"So no martyrdom, agreed? I knew we'd have to be careful when I agreed to date you in the first place."

"Alright, alright." Niou laughs, then, and flops against Yagyuu's side. "It was a stupid suggestion. But my mother is going to be keeping an eye on me pretty closely. No lock on my door any more. I don't know how much privacy we'll get."

"Mm. My mother isn't stopping us, but she isn't exactly going to aid and abet us either."

"Yeah. Crap, I'm not going to be able to look her in the eyes, knowing she knows."

"Add that to your grounding, and it might _feel_ like we've broken up for a while anyway."

Niou responds to that by pulling Yagyuu into a soft kiss, and the moment's only broken when they hear the roof door click open. Niou peers around the corner; it's a couple of girls, who head straight for the corner overlooking the soccer field to sit and eat and gossip. They giggle and exchange bits of their lunches and peer down at the soccer players below. They don't notice Niou and Yagyuu, who sit quietly listening to their chatter for a bit, and then Niou sniffs ruefully.

"Ah, we should head back in."

Yagyuu notices the faintly envious look Niou gives the girls as they leave, and he can't really blame him; it's been a long time since he felt as untroubled as the girls seem to be.

After practise that afternoon, they walk towards the bus towards their cram school. Niou kicks at stones and drags his feet and generally acts like cram school is the most boring prospect around. Yagyuu bites his tongue; he's not in the mood to have a fight, and he can guess what Niou's reasons for feeling brattish are. Honestly, he's barely restraining the urge to skip it for the day. It's absurdly tempting to suggest they go -- somewhere, anywhere else. But it's a childish urge, and one of them has to be a grown-up at the moment.

The tutor calls Niou up at the end of class, to discuss his absence; Yagyuu waits outside.

"I have to go home immediately," says Niou when he emerges. It's not a surprise, really.

"Want me to ask my mother if I can stay--" and then Yagyuu thinks about the rest of that sentence, and blushes. "Um. I probably shouldn't, not for a while."

Niou shakes his head. "We have a study date tomorrow anyway, right? At least we'll have _some_ time."


End file.
